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William Powell Frith

The Salon d'Or, Homburg, 1871

Description

Maker

  • William Powell Frith, 1819-1909, English

Title

The Salon d'Or, Homburg

Year

1871

Medium

Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • oil paint

Supports

  • canvas

Dimensions

125.1 x 260.4 cm (49 1/4 x 102 1/2 inches)

Place

England

Type

  • Paintings

Credit

Gift of Mr. Walter Lowry

Object Number

58.162

Projects & Publications

Publications

European Paintings and Sculpture, ca. 1770 - 1937

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Intermission

December 16, 2016 - July 2, 2017

From the Reserve I

April 9 - August 3, 1994

Born in Yorkshire and trained at the Royal Academy Schools, William Powell Frith is best remembered today for painting highly detailed scenes of modern life. In 1869 he visited Bad Homburg, a German spa near Frankfurt which was known for its gambling casino. Learning that the gaming tables were to be closed in 1871 at the expiration of the casino's thirty-three year lease, Frith began to make drawings for the large scale representation of gamblers at the Salon d'Or, shown here. Using photographs as well as some of the actual fittings from the room, such as croupier's rakes, empty rouleau-cases, and chairs from the gaming tables, Frith was able to create an accurate representation of the casino. In addition, he arranged the figures to underscore the tragic side of gambling. While a young man in the left foreground implores his female companion in a red dress to lend him more money, a couple in the middle of the room cast looks of reproval on a woman clad in a dove-grey dress at the center, who has just turned away from the gaming table. Her misfortune in the middle of this public arena sets the tone, one of Victorian moralizing, for the entire painting.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is The Salon d'Or, Homburg with the accession number of 58.162. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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