Boy Playing a Jew's Harp & Man Playing a Pipe

These two companion paintings are part of a set of five which originally hung in Cornelia, Lady Craven's bedroom, at Hamstead Marshall. They are examples of a sombre yet gracious realism which became characteristic of British painting, and not only the subject but the presentation has a musical quality which often appears in Lely's very best work. These two paintings, together with three other companion pictures of musicians were previously inventoried in the Craven collection as by Soest. They seem to be identical with 'a Lady, and three (sic) Musicians, by Francis Halls', noted by Horace Walpole when he visited Lord Craven in 1768, and had probably been in the possession of the Cravens since the 17th century.