Portrait of Sarah Prince (also known as Silver Moon or Girl at the pianoforte)

Brewster, John (1766-1854)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

ca. 1801

Height:

133.0 cm  (52 3/8 in.)

Width:

101.3 cm  (39 7/8 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

Portrait of 16-year old Sarah Prince seated beside the lower end of a piano keyboard, but facing the viewer; her left hand rests near the edge of the keys, while her right hand holds a piece of music on which the opening of James Hook's song "The Silver Moon" is legible.

People as subjects

Prince, Sarah (1785–1867)

Iconclass

48C723
portrait of a musician
48C75
making music; musician with instrument
31D13
adolescent, young woman, maiden
48C7333
pianoforte

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Pianoforte [2299]

Musical works

Hook, James -- The silver moonlegible music notation

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1
image link 3

Notes

Musical notation in portrait is the opening measures/piano introduction to Hook's song "The Silver Moon," published ca. 1800. Text of the song refers to music played by a "lovely sw[a]in" in the moonlight, and names an "oaten Keed" instrument and a bagpipe (perhaps the same). A digitized copy of relevant page of that work is available from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/resource/musm1a1.11290.0/?sp=2

RIdIM record id

6083