(click image to enlarge)
Thomas Rowlandson’s familiarity with the gaming table is well known and was used often in his work, such as in A Kick Up at a Hazard Table (a print of which was produced by John Harris). Grego lists a drawing with the title Gaming House as ‘a drawing similar to that which serves as a frontispiece to the Beauties of Tom Brown’ (Grego, vol II, page 431). The print referred to is Gaming House where a Parcell of sharks meet to bite one another's Heads off!, a similar composition as the present drawing, with a table of despondent gamblers. The present artwork is one of a number of drawings by Thomas Rowlandson that share the same fundamental composition but with minor differences to the figures and objects that appear.
A similar drawing is recorded as being in the collections of the London Museum, entitled Gaming at Brook’s Club (see John Hayes, A Catalogue of the Watercolour Drawings by Thomas Rowlandson in the London Museum, 1960, no 9). Another, entitled Rooks Waiting for Pigeons is recorded in Grego as being in the collection of W T B Ashley in 1880 (Grego, vol II, page 417). Another version of this artwork is recorded in the collections of Brown University (Providence, RI), with the title British Club Scene.
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