William Hogarth

British, 1697-1764

The Lady's Last Stake, 1759

oil on canvas

support: 36 x 41 1/2 inches (91.44 x 105.41 cm); framed: 47 x 52 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches (119.38 x 133.985 x 6.985 cm)

Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1945

1945:2.1

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Inscriptions

no inscriptions

Provenance

painted for the First Earl of Charlemont, James Caulfield (1728-1799), in 1759;
remained in the family of Lord Charlemont, until 1874;
sold to Vokins at auction, London, lot 57, May 2, 1874;
collection of Louis Huth, by 1881;
Agnew & Sons, London, 1889;
collection of J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York, from 1900;
M. Knoedler & Co., New York;
sold to the Albright Art Gallery, May 28, 1945

Class

Paintings

Work Type

Oil painting

Information may change due to ongoing research.Glossary of Terms

During his lifetime, William Hogarth painted a number of satirical portraits in which he attacked folly and vice, including extravagance, drunkenness, and gambling. Hogarth was a theater enthusiast and thought of his paintings in dramatic as opposed to pictorial terms. The Lady’s Last Stake was inspired by a comedy of the same name by British playwright Colley Cibber (1671–1757), in which a married aristocratic woman gambles away her fortune to an army officer. The soldier then proposes that the two play one more game and, if she wins, she will regain her fortune. Should she lose, she will still have her goods returned, but she will also be obliged to take him as her lover. Yet, the crux of this image is not the couple’s interaction, her considerable loss, or his tactless offer. Instead it is the small, white dog perched on a pillow beneath the table. Traditionally in painting of this period, dogs are a symbol of fidelity, and, here, the dog is out of sight as the woman ponders the soldier’s terms.