Concerto Spirituale

Rowlandson’s witty, crude, and often subtle caricatures of English society were very popular. In this drawing, he depicts Johann Christian Bach, playing an oboe, and Karl Friedrich Abel, with his viola da gamba. The two musicians and composers gave highly successful and fashionable concerts together from 1756 until the early 1780s. Rowlandson has dabbed flickering touches of pink watercolor on Abel’s ruddy cheeks and round chin, and he has drawn Bach’s long, sloping nose with one continuous stroke of pen. In this comic portrait, the two figures bear the characteristics of the instruments they play, one long and thin, the other hefty and rounded (2022).