In 1986 British artist Lubaina Himid was drawn to an image in a popular print series by William Hogarth. Marriage a la Mode of 1743 sought to expose the greed, fashionable excesses and exploitation which Hogarth saw at the heart of affluent 18th-century London life. Through six scenes, it describes the fall-out from an arranged marriage between the son of an impoverished Earl and the daughter of an avaricious tobacco merchant. Himid focused on scene four in which the countess is pictured at her toilette receiving the attention of her lover the lawyer Silvertongue, surrounded by friends and admirers.

Himid’s response took the form of an installation entitled A Fashionable Marriage. Using larger-than-life plywood figures, she reused the characters and composition of the Hogarth original to deliver a scathing critique on contemporary art and politics. An ambassador waiting with his hair in curlers, sipping from a cup became ‘the dithering art funder’. In this preparatory drawing he is depicted sitting on a wobbly picket fence, unable to decide to whom he should allocate his funds: ‘the disabled, the black, the women, or wait until some else gives permission?’ (Himid, 2001).

This and the related drawings (E.599-602-1996) were produced by the artist as 'aides memoires' for the 3D installation.