Handel’s Bedroom – Furniture & Artwork
Left:
Title: George Frideric Handel
Artist: After the model by Louis-Francois Roubiliac
Medium: White Marble
Date: 18th century
Collection: Royal Collection, lent by her majesty the Queen
A white marble bust of George Frideric Handel as a middle-aged man, balding and wearing a cravat, shirt with braid and tassel collar, wrapped with a cloak; resting on a socle base. King George III placed this bust of his favourite composer in a position of honour in Buckingham House, on top of the organ in Queen Charlotte’s Breakfast Room.
Middle:
Title: Rocky landscape with figures
Artist: David Teniers the younger
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: c. 1660-1690
Collection: Victoria & Albert Museum
David Teniers II (1610-1690) was a Flemish painter known for painting groups of peasants at local Inns and village festivals. He moved towards landscapes and pastoral scenes that feature working figures in his latest career. The painting on display here is a great example of Teniers work. It depicts a stream running through a rocky landscape with two herdsmen, one holding a set of bag-pipes, tending sheep, pigs and cattle. Handel owned a painting by Teniers called A conversation of Boors.
Title: Lewis Francis Roubiliac
Artist: D. Martin after Adrien
Medium: Mezzotint
Date: 1765
Collection: Handel House Trust
This portrait was commissioned by the actor, playwright and theatre manager David Garrick in 1757. It depicts Roubiliac at work on a terracotta model in preparation for the life-sized marble statue of William Shakespeare. The model is now located in Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. The statue is at the British Library.
Title: Roubilliac’s statue of Handel in Vauxhall Gardens
Artist: Francesco Bartolozzi after Biagio Rebecca
Medium: Engraving
Date: 1789
Collection: Handel House Trust
The statue was commissioned in 1738 by Jonathan Tyers, the owner of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This grand, life-sized statue established Louis Francois Roubilliac’s reputation as a sculptor and represented Handel’s fame and popularity during his lifetime. It is one of the first statues of someone of significance, who was not of the monarchy, a nobleman, or a military leader, created when the sitter was still alive. It can now be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Title: Vauxhall Gardens with view of Handel statue
Artist: Unknown
Medium: Engraving
Date: 1751
Collection: Handel House Trust
The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were a place for eating, drinking, gambling, dancing and listening to new musical works, amongst other ‘leisurely’ activities. The gardens played an important role for fashionable 18th century Londoners and with Handel’s entrepreneurial nature he seized the potential of the gardens by rehearsing and premiering his music there to adoring crowds; a great advertisement for his concerts and performances elsewhere in London. Roubilliac’s statue of Handel can be seen on the right-hand side of this engraving, overlooking the bandstand.
Title: View of Handel’s Monument Westminster Abbey
Artist: I.M. Deattre after E.F. Burney
Medium: Engraving
Date: 1785
Collection: Handel House Trust
In the last appendix to his will, added just three days before he died on the 14th April 1759, Handel left £600 for his burial in Westminster Abbey. The memorial to Handel on the wall above his grave in the south transept of the Abbey was sculpted by Roubiliac and was unveiled in 1762. The musical score held in Handel’s right-hand is that of Messiah opened at the aria ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’.
Title: Huntsmen with Dogs
Artist: Abraham Hondius
Medium: Oil on oak panel
Date: c.1650
Collection: Victoria & Albert Museum
Abraham Hondius (1631-1691) was a Dutch painter who moved to London in 1666. He is known for his hunting scenes that depict quiet moments before or after the hunt, almost invariably set on the edges of a wood. Handel owned two paintings by Hondius, one of which was called A hunting piece. The painting displayed here is a great example of Hondius’ work in this genre.
Handel had a vast art collection of around 80 significant works by artists such as Locatelli and Watteau. They were all sold at auction in 1760 by Mr Langford in Covent Garden and so, whilst we cannot trace the journey of these works to the present day, we have a comprehensive list of what Handel had in his collection at 25 Brook Street. The list suggests that Handel had a keen interest in landscape and pastoral scenes, as well as conversation pieces (groups of people talking and partaking in activities together).
Title: Rocky landscape with figures
Artist: David Teniers the younger
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: c. 1660-1690
Collection: Victoria & Albert Museum
David Teniers II (1610-1690) was a Flemish painter known for painting groups of peasants at local Inns and village festivals. He moved towards landscapes and pastoral scenes that feature working figures in his latest career. The painting on display here is a great example of Teniers work. It depicts a stream running through a rocky landscape with two herdsmen, one holding a set of bag-pipes, tending sheep, pigs and cattle. Handel owned a painting by Teniers called A conversation of Boors.
Title: John Christopher Smith
Artist: E. Harding after Zoffany
Medium: Etching
Date: c.1799
Collection: Handel House Trust
JC Smith (1712-1795) was an English composer and organist. At the age of 13 he became Handel’s pupil, and afterwards was taught composition by Pepusch and Thomas Roseingrave. Smith worked for Handel as an amanuensis and helped him in his oratorio performances as organist when his sight began to fail in later life. In 1754, Smith became the first organist of the Foundling Hospital Chapel. His own compositions include the operas The Fairies and The Tempest both written in the 1750s. Handel bequeathed to Smith all of his original manuscript scores and his harpsichord, amongst other things. Smith continued the oratorios until 1770, when he retired and went to live in Bath.
Top left:
Title: George Frederik Handel
Artist: G.A. Wolfgang after J. G. Wolfgang
Medium: Mezzotint engraving
Date: Unknown
Collection: Handel House Trust
Bottom left:
Title: G F Handel
Artist: Francis Kyte
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1742
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, London
This portrait of Handel is a rare work by Francis Kyte (active 1710- died 1744) painted the same year Messiah was first performed in Dublin.
Top right:
Title: A Musician, believed to be Handel
Artist: Unknown
Medium: Oil on copper
Date: 1713
Collection: Handel House Trust
Little is known about this portrait. It was painted in 1713, the same year that Handel was commissioned to write a new composition for the celebration of Queen Anne’s birthday and received royal favour with an annual allowance of £200.
Bottom right:
Title: Handel
Artist: Jacobus Houbraken, after an unknown original, surround and scene underneath after Hubert Francois Gravelot.
Medium: Engraving
Date: 1738
Collection: Handel House Trust
Title: The Charming Brute
Artist: after Joseph Goupy
Medium: Engraving
Date: published 1754
Collection: Gerald Coke Collection, The Foundling Museum
This is a caricature of Handel sitting at the organ surrounded by luxurious food and drink. There is a selection of succulent meat and poultry laying upon the organ, discarded oyster shells at his feet, turtle soup to his right and a barrel of fine wine underneath him. He is presented with a protruding stomach and the snout of a pig, enforcing the characteristics of a fat, greedy pig.
Title: Handel’s House
Artist: John Buckler
Medium: Watercolour
Date: 1839
Collection: Handel House Trust
John Buckler (1770-1851) was a British artist and occasional architect who is best remembered for his many drawings of churches and other historic buildings, recording much that has since been altered or destroyed. He made this picture of Handel’s house to record how it looked before the garret on the top floor was turned into a full height attic in the 1830s.
Title: A View of St George’s Church Hanover Square
Artist: Unknown
Medium: Engraving
Date: 1751
Collection: Handel House Trust
In the same year as this engraving was created, Handel’s eyesight began to fail and by 1752 he was completely blind. With the loss of one of his senses and the agony of arthritis, Handel’s devotion to religion increased. It is said that he attended services regularly at St George’s from the time of its opening in 1725, two years after he first moved to Brook Street and, in particular towards the end of his life.
