A Sunday Concert by Charles Loraine Smith

Watercolours, brown and black ink and pencil

13 x 19 ins
1782

The informal concerts held by Dr. Charles Burney in his London house in St Martin's Street were described by his daughter Fanny as 'harmonical coteries'. To style them concerts, she asserted 'may be conferring on them a dignity to which they had not any pretension. There was no bill of fare: there were not engaged subalterns, either to double, or aid, or contrast, with the principals. The performers were promiscuous; and simply such as suited the varying humours and desires of the company; a part of which were always assistants as well as auditors'. Nevertheless, such was the Doctor's reputation that 'there was hardly a musician in England who, if called upon, would have refused his services'.

From the annotated etching later made from this watercolour we learn the names of the distinguished company. Chief target for satire Lady Mary Duncan, seated heavily on the left and gazing at the great castrato Pacchierotti, for whom she nursed a notorious passion; between them at the keyboard, Pacchierotti's friend the Venetian composer Bertoni. The remaining instrumentalists (from left to right) are: Cariboldi (double-bass), the bespectacled Hayford (oboe), James Cervetto ('cello), the violinist Salpietro, J. C. Fisher, leading oboist of the day and son-in-law to Gainsborough, the violist Langoni, and one of the brothers Pieltain playing the horn.

In the foreground Dr. Burney, oblivious to the music, is talking to Miss Polly Wilkes, daughter of the politician John Wilkes. Only the solitary figure on the extreme right remains unidentified; speculations include the instrument maker J. J. Merlin, the painter himself, or Burney's nephew the musician Charles Rousseau Burney.