William Hogarth is one of the very few designers of trade cards to have achieved sufficient fame in his work to be the object of forgeries. He is known to have designed or engraved about 30 cards, and is also reputed to have painted shop signs. Hogarth’s print Beer Street shows a contented sign painter and many of Hogarth’s prints of street scenes show shop signs. He was involved in the Grand Exhibition of the ‘Society of Sign-Painters’, put on by Bonnell Thornton in April 1762, referred to in part 1.

Of Hogarth’s trade card for Ellis Gamble, the John Johnson Collection has only the upper part, but this card is considered to be very rare: at one time it was thought that there was only one in existence. Ellis Gamble was a goldsmith, to whom Hogarth was apprenticed from 1714 to 1719, leaving to set up on his own as an engraver before his seven-year term was finished. This card dates from after Gamble’s move to the Golden Angel in Cranbourn-Street in 1724. The angel has six fingers.