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
Thomas Hardy (English painter) Thomas Hardy (English painter) Thomas Hardy (1756/57 – 1804) was a portrait painter born in Derbyshire, England. Not much is known about Hardy's background, life and career. He enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools at the end of 1778, where records show he had turned 21 in the previous June. He exhibited some 31 paintings at the Royal Academy from 1778 to 1798 — practically all portraits — and four portraits at the Society of Artists exhibition in 1790. Thomas Hardy’s sitters included musical figures active in London during the 1790s. Most of Hardy's portrait paintings were painted for the