La Porta di Calais

Hogarth painted this soon after a humiliating trip to France in 1748. Sketching the old English-built gate at Calais — the town had been an English possession for two centuries, until 1558 — he was seized as a spy, hauled before the governor, and packed home on the next boat. His revenge was this scene: a great side of English beef carried past a knot of gaunt French soldiers and a fat, staring friar, the whole picture a jab at a France he paints as hungry and priest-ridden. Look to the left edge and there is Hogarth himself, sketchbook in hand, a soldier's arm already closing on his shoulder.