The Card Players: Pam, Flush and Loo
John Opie, RA (St Agnes 1761 – London 1807)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1785 (exh at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
940 x 1245 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486158
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Card Players: Pam, Flush and Loo by John Opie, RA (St Agnes 1761 – London 1807), 1785. Three figures, two girls and a youth playing cards. In the centre is a girl, full face and half-length, holding a hand of hearts; at right, another girl, three-quarters left, who has her hands raised. At left, with profile right, is a youth dressed in black. A red curtain is in the background. The sitters are Opie's first wife, Mary Bunn, to whom his marriage was dissolved by 1796, and her brother and sister. This is the original painting, that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785 and a copy is at Trerice, NT 337050.
Provenance
Bought by George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), probably from the posthumous sale of the artist William Owen (George Squibb, lot 81, Jul 2 1825) 'Card Players'. In the collection of the 3rd Earl of Egremont by 1835. Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth, The Egremont Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
John Opie, RA (St Agnes 1761 – London 1807), artist