A Rake's Progress, 3: The Tavern Scene A Rake's Progress, 3: The Tavern Scene Tavern Scene or "The Orgy" is a work by William Hogarth from 1735, the third picture from the series "A Rake's Progress". "A Rake's Progress" totals eight oil paintings from 1732-33. They were published as engravings from 1734. The series depicts the fictional Tom Rakewell's decline and fall. He was the free spending son and heir of a rich merchant. In the story, he comes to London, wasting his money on luxurious life, buying the services of prostitutes and gambling. He ends up in Fleet Prison, and finally at the Bethlem Hospital, or
Rake (stock character) Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy. After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the rake took a dive into squalor. The rake became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, venereal disease, or, in the case of William Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress", insanity in Bedlam. The defining period of the rake was at the