This portrait shows the composer, conductor, organist and manager Samuel Arnold (1740-1802), a prominent figure on the flourishing music scene in late-18th-century London.
It is one of a series of portraits of composers commissioned from the artist Thomas Hardy by the music publisher John Bland, who then reproduced the pictures to advertise his wares.
Hardy’s origins are uncertain, but he trained at the Royal Academy Schools and became a successful portrait artist, exhibiting 31 paintings at the RA between 1778 and 1798. Among the portraits he painted for Bland is the much-reproduced likeness of Joseph Hadyn, in the collection of the Royal College of Music Museum. Two other portraits from the series – one of the impresario Johann Peter Salomon, the other of composer William Shield – are also in the collection, where this likeness of Samuel Arnold joins them.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Portrait of Samuel Arnold, c1796
Date supported
2021
Medium and material
Oil
Dimensions
76.8 x 64cm
Grant
3500
Total cost
7000

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