The Life of Buckingham
Medium
oil on board
Dimensions
unframed: 30.5 × 40.5 cm · framed: 54.1 × 64.5 × 10.2 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2014.373
Tags
About this artwork
Augustus Leopold Egg’s The Life of Buckingham depicts a fictional moment in the debauched, roguish life of George Villiers (1628–1687), 2nd Duke of Buckingham (seated at the center, wearing white). Although the scene is invented, the merrymakers and courtesans depicted around the table (among them King Charles II, to Buckingham’s right) were characters the duke would have personally known and were familiar to Victorian audiences who delighted in the cautionary tale of excess.