Skip to main content
Gambling for the Buck
Gambling for the Buck
Gambling for the Buck

Gambling for the Buck

Artist (American, 1814 - 1872)
Date1867
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions20 x 15 7/8 inches (50.8 x 40.3 cm)
Frame: 28 1/2 × 24 1/2 × 4 5/8 inches (72.4 × 62.2 × 11.7 cm)
Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965
Object number31.23.11
ClassificationsPaintings
Label TextThis highly detailed representation of a card game, whose winner will take home the dead buck in the foreground, reveals John Mix Stanley's interest in photography. This scene of everyday life is orchestrated to provide variety in costume and an almost archaeological accounting of artifacts. The elevated, stagelike platform and the hanging skins that function almost as curtains add to the painting's theatricality.
ProvenanceArtist; by descent to his granddaughter Alice Stanley Acheson, Washington, D.C.[1]; purchased April 24, 1959 by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art | 1. According to a letter to H.J. Lutcher Stark dated April 7, 1959 Alice Stanley Archeson seems to have owned this with her brother and sister.
On View
On view
Halting to Smoke
John Mix Stanley
1855
William Hempstead as a Boy
John Mix Stanley
1839
The Last of Their Race
John Mix Stanley
1857
Valencia, New Mexico
John Mix Stanley
1847
John Mix Stanley
1847
View of the Copper Mine
John Mix Stanley
1847
Indian Man
John Mix Stanley
1843
View in the Sierra Mimbres
John Mix Stanley
1847
View in the Sierra Mimbres
John Mix Stanley
1847