When this print was published in 1788, George considered suing the publisher Samuel Fores. It shows him and his drunken friends stumbling into his sick father’s bedroom. Such allegations of poor behaviour threatened George’s (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to be made Regent during the king’s illness in 1788–9. Unsurprisingly, this impression was not acquired for the Royal Collection until the reign of Queen Victoria.

Purchased by Queen Victoria, probably in 1854