Lucky Man in Massachusetts? This New Englander posed for a formal portrait around 1790, proudly holding a lottery ticket. Has this man just won the lottery, or is he merely hopeful? State taxes and confederation requisitions often proved hard to collect in the 1780s. Lotteries became a common way to raise supplementary state financing for schools and public works in the earliest years of the Republic.
(Lucky Man): American, Man Holding a (Massachusetts) Lottery Ticket, ca. 1790. Oil on canvas, 29 5/8 × 24 5/8 in. (75.25 × 62.55 cm). Layton Art Collection, Inc. at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase L1964.1. Lottery ticket: © Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA, USA/Bridgeman Images.