Ticket

Bartolozzi, Francesco (1727-1815)

Smirke, Robert (1752-1845) (after a work of)


Item type:
print
Date of creation:
mid to late-18th century
Technique / Medium:
etching and line engraving on thick, moderately textured, cream (discolored to beige at edges) laid paper

    Item location

  • Yale Center for British Art
    Paul Mellon Collection[Museum inv. no.: B1978.43.749 and B1978.43.750]B1978.43.749: Inscribed in graphite, on back, lower right: "1934 | (IR31/1948a)" Lettered in black ink, lower left: "Smirk Invt:"; lower right: "F. Bartolozzi Sculp:" ------ B1978.43.750: Inscribed in brown ink, on back, upper right, partly cropped off sheet: "No. 189 | Ra Goh Mi [cropped] | Evgr. | Jubverit[?]"; in graphite, on back, lower left: "Smirk invt"; on back, lower right: "1934 | Bartolozzi sculp | (IR31/1948b) | JW (initials in monogram)"
    Lettered in black ink, upper center, within separate platemark: "WESTMINSTER ABBEY, | Admittance either of the following Days | May, the 23rd. 26th. 28th. or 1st of June, 1791"

  • British Museum
    [Museum inv. no.: C,3.95 ; C,3.96 ; 1897,1231.312 through 1897,1231.317]8 copies

Description

The plate of this image was used to print tickets for a number of different concerts in the 1790s, the details for each event being changed on the title plate rather than the main plate. Venues of the tickets included Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret's Church in Westminter, Whitehall Chapel, and King's Theatre, Haymarket. Within an oval at the center of the picture is an interior scene with a lady seated, gazing heavenward while playing a small organ; a music score is open above the keyboard and she is attended by two adult angels; light shines through clouds billowing above. Below the central scene are smaller images that may have significance to the original artist's conception: laurel wreaths and long trumpets, a lion, a unicorn, and a mother with three children.

People as subjects

St. Cecilia (Musician portrait)

Iconclass

11HH(CECILIA)11
St. Cecilia as patroness of music
11HH(CECILIA)111
St. Cecilia making music and/or singing
48C723
portrait of a musician
48C7523
one person playing keyboard instrument
48C7334
organ
11G
angels
26A
clouds
22C32
light shining out of the heavens
25F
animals
42B123
mother with son(s) and daughter(s) (mother-love)
48C73
musical instruments; group of musical instruments

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Positive organ [2268]
End-blown trumpet [6556]

Musical works

illegible music notation

RIdIM images


Yale B1978.43.749

Yale B1978.43.750

Image URLs

image link 1
Yale B1978.43.749
image link 2
Yale B1978.43.750
image link 5
British Museum C,3.96

Notes

This scene shares some features with William Dickinson's print titled 'Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia' (RIdIM item 6291), created in 1776 and based on a 1775 painting by Joshua Reynolds (RIdIM item 6294). Especially striking in the Bartolozzi print (ca. 1791 or earlier, after Robert Smirke) are the two adult angels beside the keyboard and the three cherubs around the small mother-love (Charity) image added below the central oval. While there is no explicit link made to Mrs. Sheridan in the Bartolozzi/Smirke prints, public awareness of an association between that very famous person and St. Cecilia imagery may have existed. Elizabeth Ann Linley Sheridan had two surviving children (a son, and a daughter), one stillborn child, and possibly more than one miscarriage.

RIdIM record id

6346