The Rake's Progress The Rake's Progress The Rake's Progress is an English-language opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings "A Rake's Progress" (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition. The story concerns the decline and fall of one Tom Rakewell, who deserts Anne Trulove for the delights of London in the company of Nick Shadow, who turns out to be the Devil. After several misadventures, all initiated by the devious Shadow, Tom
George Barret Sr. classical Italianate scenes of artists such as Claude Lorrain. A pair of paintings sold in 2013, came from the collection of the Rev. Samuel Madden (1686-1765). Madden established a series of prizes at Trinity College, Dublin, to reward agricultural and artistic enterprise, designed an important landscape garden on the shores of Lough Erne, founded the Dublin (later Royal) Society, and left an important collection of 17th- and 18th-century Italian pictures to Trinity College. These two paintings were based on engravings of two paintings by Claude Lorrain. One of these is after "Landscape with a rural dance" , which belonged to