A Rake’s Progress: The Gaming House

1735-06 · cartoon

Can I see it?

Unknown

Where is “A Rake’s Progress: The Gaming House” now? Collection: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Unknown.

Rijksmuseum

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.

Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

A rich man’s son, Tom Rakewell, has just gambled away a fortune in White’s Club in London. Kneeling, he prays for God’s help. Fire breaks out behind him, but men gamble away, unaware of impending danger. Hogarth devoted a series of eight paintings to Tom’s wasteful lifestyle, which he later issued in print. Incidentally, it ended badly for Tom: he was thrown into debtors’ prison and ultimately landed in a mental institution.

Rijksmuseum

Details

Accession number: RP-P-OB-19.239

What it shows

Arm raised, with fist Games of calculation and chance, e.g.: card games, gambling, puzzles, etc.Wig Covent Garden

In the catalog

Prints Rococo 18th century

Sources

Rijksmuseum
Image: Rijksmuseum — public domain

In the life of William Hogarth

The whole life

1712–1764 · Workplace
London
1735
Founds the St Martin’s Lane Academy
In 1735 Hogarth founded the St Martin’s Lane Academy in London — in essence a drawing studio that grew out of a circle of painters, draughtsmen and engravers who met at Slaughter’s coffee house on St Martin’s Lane. It became a forerunner of the Royal Academy of Arts and spread new artistic ideas in England.
25 June 1735
“Hogarth’s Act”: copyright for engravings
When the success of the two series produced numerous pirated copies, Hogarth lobbied Parliament for a law protecting engravers: the Engravers’ Copyright Act, known as “Hogarth’s Act”, became law on 25 June 1735 — the first copyright law to cover visual works and to recognise the authorial rights of an individual artist.

All works