FREDERICK dissipating the Remains of his Fortune at a Gaming Table.

Date1787

Publisher Carington Bowles 1724 - 1793

MediumLine engraving and etching on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: 9 7/8 × 15 5/8 in (25.08 × 39.69cm)
Other (Platemark): 7 × 11 in (17.78 × 27.94cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1959-83,6

DescriptionThe lower margin reads: "FREDERICK dissipating the Remains of his Fortune at a Gaming Table./ Printed for & Sold by Carington Bowles,/ N.o 69 St. Paul's Church Yard, London./ Published as the Act directs, 31 August, 1787."Label TextThe sixth in a series of twelve prints representing the "Contrast between Virtue and Vice exhibited in the Characters of Two Brothers." This print is a continuation of the moral narrative that chronicles the fates of two brothers named Charles and Frederick, who travel down different paths after receiving their inheritance. What follows is a cautionary tale about virtue and vice, a popular topic of prints like William Hogarth's "Modern Moral Conversations" or those depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Frederick continues to spend his fortune, this time at the gaming table. He is shown in a room with four other gentlemen. He is at one table with two others. He holds a dice cup in his left hand in the position of just having tossed the pair that lie on the table in front of him. One of the young men sitd across from him and has a considerable amount of money in front of him. Another man stands at one side as if the keeper of the table. Behind this group two other men play cards at a small table. The room has three pictures hanging on the wall. One is a fort and boat close to shore. The second is a portrait of a horse. The third is a woodland landscape.
ProvenanceBefore 1959, the Old Print Shop (New York, NY); 1959-present, purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA).