Girl Building a House of Cards

This painting entered the Museum in 1890 with an attribution to William Hogarth (1697–1764), and over the years has been ascribed by various scholars to Henry Robert Morland (1716?–1797), Joseph Highmore (1692–1780), George Knapton (1698–1778), George Beare (active by 1743, died 1749), and Richard Wilson (1712/13–1782). The Museum long connected the picture with Knapton; the current attribution is due to a proposal advanced by Elizabeth Einberg in 2007. The Irish artist Frye, not widely known today, was well established in London by 1736 as a portraitist, miniaturist, and printmaker. Einberg noted that the large eyes with the lower lids emphasized are typical of Frye, as are the "muscular, well-articulated hands with a strong straight thumb, most unusual in a child portrait."

[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]

[J. H. Ward, London, until 1889, as "Miss Rich Building a House of Cards," by William Hogarth; sold to Marquand]; Henry G. Marquand, New York (1889–90)

Louisville. Speed Art Museum. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," December 1, 1948–January 23, 1949, no catalogue.

Madison. Memorial Union Gallery, University of Wisconsin. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," February 15–March 30, 1949, unnumbered cat.

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," April 24–June 30, 1949, no catalogue.

New York. American Federation of Arts. "English Portraits and Landscapes (circulating exhibition)," 1951–52.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Eighteenth-Century Woman," December 12, 1981–September 5, 1982, unnumbered cat. (p. 52).

"Donations of Works of Art in 1890." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art no. 21 (1890), p. 478, as "Miss Rich," by Hogarth.

Henry G. Marquand. Letter to the trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. April 17, 1890, among paintings he offers to donate to the museum, includes "a portrait of a young girl by Hogarth".

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 56.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 184, ill. p. 183.

Elizabeth Einberg. Letter to Katharine Baetjer. December 14, 2007, suggests an attribution to Thomas Frye.

Katharine Baetjer. British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875. New York, 2009, pp. 54–56, no. 24, ill. (color), calls it Attributed to Thomas Frye, based on a suggestion of Elizabeth Einberg [see Ref. 2007].