“-A little Music”-or- The Delights of Harmony.

James Gillray

“-A little Music”-or- The Delights of Harmony.

London, H Humphrey 20^th. March 1810

Etching

Original hand colouring

250 x 350 mm

£1200

A young woman plays the piano (right) with painful intentness, and sings, as does the man who holds open her music-book, inscribed ‘On Rosy Bed by Tinckling Billy’. A middle-aged military officer stands full face playing the flute. A fat elderly ‘cit’ sleeps in an arm-chair (left); his wig has fallen off and his legs rest on another chair. Behind him a very obese man and an ugly and over-dressed woman with a grotesquely thin neck sing from the same piece of music: ‘On Rosy Bed’. He warms his back at a blazing fire; the feathers in her hair are alight in one of the candles on the chimney-piece. A small boy blows a toy trumpet, a dog howls and a cat miaows, standing on an open music-book inscribed ‘Water Part ….’ Chinese figures on the chimney-piece and the lintel of the door represent comic musicians playing different instruments.