While Lady Buckingham is gambling with her cronies, her husband enters to report the theft of the bank. Etching by James Gillray, 1797.

  • Gillray, James, 1756-1815.
Date:
Feb. 2nd 1797
Reference:
28524i
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view While Lady Buckingham is gambling with her cronies, her husband enters to report the theft of the bank. Etching by James Gillray, 1797.

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While Lady Buckingham is gambling with her cronies, her husband enters to report the theft of the bank. Etching by James Gillray, 1797. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

George Hobart, third Earl of Buckinghamshire, enters from a strongroom on the left and tells his wife Albinia, who is playing the card game faro with her cronies, that her gambling bank has been stolen. The cronies include (left to right) Mrs Concannon, proprietor of a gambling house; Colonel Hanger (subsequently Lord Coleraine), a gambler; Charles James Fox (seated); Richard Brinsley Sheridan; and Sarah Lady Archer. On 30 January 1797, a box containing 500 guineas, the property of the Countess of Buckinghamshire and two other ladies, co-proprietors of the faro bank, had been stolen from Lord Buckinghamshire's house in St James's Square, London. The loss was discovered when a card party was about to begin (British Museum catalogue, loc. cit.). "Hobart succeeded his half-brother as earl of Buckinghamshire on 3 September 1793, but did not inherit the family estates, which the second earl had divided among his daughters. The new countess, already infamous as a gambler, was reported as opening her house for faro games twice a week in order to raise the funds to maintain her new dignity. … In March 1797, alongside Lady Elizabeth Luttrell, she was fined £50 for illicit gambling." (Oxford dictionary of national biography)

Publication/Creation

London (New Bond Street) : H. Humphrey, Feb. 2nd 1797.

Physical description

1 print : etching ; image 23.6 x 34.7 cm

Lettering

The loss of the faro bank; or the rook's pigeon'd - When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war. Js. Gy. inv.& fec.

References note

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, no. 9078

Reference

Wellcome Collection 28524i

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