Exhibitions do not have to be huge to be impressive, and one of the most attractive I had the pleasure of seeing in 2011 was the display of most of the surviving musical paintings and drawings, fewer than twenty in total, by Marcellus Laroon the younger and his father, Marcellus Laroon senior. Laroon the younger, to whom most of the exhibition was devoted, is described in the exhibition catalogue as ‘an immediately likeable artist working fast with his pencil or brush…gently poking fun at the society around him’. A one-time singer at Drury Lane theatre and well known both to the theatre managers and to performers of Italian opera in early Hanoverian London, he was also adept at recording images ranging from domestic music-making to small-scale tavern scenes; as a result, his exceptionally detailed depictions of musicians within a variety of social contexts during the first half of the eighteenth century provide remarkable insights to both high life and the commonplace of that time.

The subject and timing of The Music Party exhibition were particularly apt, designed to celebrate the new plans for developing the Montagu Music Collection at Boughton House and also the tenth anniversary of the Handel House Museum. Thus the exhibition opened first in the specially created exhibition gallery at the seventeenth-century time capsule which is Boughton House in Northamptonshire (11 June to 1 September 2011), before moving to the Handel House Museum in London (7 September to 27 November 2011). The project was encouraged and supported by Richard, present Duke of Buccleuch, owner of Boughton and descendant of Laroon’s foremost patron John, 2nd Duke of Montagu, and by Sarah Bardwell and the Trustees of the Handel House Museum; the work was carried out with great care and skill by staff at Boughton and at Handel House, and co-ordinated by James Miller. That the exhibition was able to bring together, perhaps for the first time, most of the surviving works of art relating to music by Laroon the younger, owes much to the far-sightedness of the sponsors and the generosity of the individuals and institutions who loaned the exhibits, some of which have rarely if ever been seen in public before. 

Having seen the exhibition at Boughton, I was intrigued to see how it would transfer to the smaller space at Handel House, and the result was remarkable. There were too many exhibits to fit comfortably into the Rehearsal and Performance Room, so three were moved next door into the Composition Room with a poster inviting visitors to continue into the main display. Two other items, appearing as high quality reproductions rather than originals, were cunningly placed in the Museum Shop to draw visitors towards the sales display of the museum guidebook and The Music Party exhibition catalogue.

The three exhibits in the Composition Room included Laroon senior’s Cryes of London, above which were displayed two drawings by his son which in date almost spanned his extraordinarily long career. One was the earliest musical study penned by Laroon, a pencil study, Flanders, A Market Tent in Camp, which depicted soldiers relaxing during Marlborough’s 1707 campaign (which Laroon joined briefly during his soldiering days), inside a tent in which music, dance and drinking feature prominently. The other, dating from about 1770, was the hilarious Quarrelling Musicians, in which rival bands roaming the streets lay into each other with musical instruments serving as cudgels and staves. The real joy, however, was the Rehearsal and Performing Room, in which the thirteen Laroon pieces on display looked so right in the space that it was almost as if they has always been intended for that room. The skilful arrangement of images guided the viewer towards salon life on one wall, tavern life on another, oils on canvas in one area contrasting with the ink and pencil sketches and the engravings on paper elsewhere in the room, with the whole display linked visually, musically and metaphorically by the harpsichord standing in the centre of the room. It all produced a wonderful sense of balance. Six of the pieces in this room illustrated the title of the exhibition, The Music Party, set in grand London house interiors which included what may be Peterborough House in about 1720, with perhaps the Earl of Peterborough and his future wife, the singer Anastasia Robinson, and her sisters present, and Montagu House during the 1730s and later, with recognisable members of the Duke of Montagu’s family present. As a series these pictures presented the viewer with a sequence of elegant scenes, full of characters as observed by Laroon and meticulously recorded, from the shape of a finely-dressed lady’s shoe or the facial expressions of the men watching the performers or talking to their friends, to the nonchalance of the lap-dog curled up on his cushion while the concert goes on around him, and the detailed depiction of interiors, furniture and musical instruments. All repay close scrutiny for the different details they record, but they also have in common a powerful sense of movement; these are not frozen-in-time pictures of static scenes, but give us as viewers the strong impression that we have just opened a door and looked inside a room while a party is in full flow, and that after we close it the figures will go on moving, talking, singing, playing.

For me, however, the most intriguing painting was the undated Dancers and Musicians, the only theatrical painting in the exhibition and one which as yet nobody seems to understand fully – but then, there is still much more to understand and identify in any of Laroon’s works. Dancers and Musicians depicts a tiny stage, with a tacked-down canvas floor-covering, and flat shutters surmounted by a draped curtain for scenery. A couple in close-fitting costumes and jaunty feathered hats are performing a jig or similar dance, moving forwards and downstage towards the viewer, with joined hands held high. On either side of them are musicians: a rather elegant Harlequin seated on a plinth, playing a violin and paying no attention whatsoever to the dancers, and a Watteau-like figure standing on another plinth with his back to the viewer, playing a bass viol and closely watching the dancers as he does so. There is a hint of mystery about the scene: of the four people only the female dancer looks directly at the viewer, and the draped curtain hanging down in swathes from the scenery looks as if it could descend and blot out the scene in an instant. The Harlequin’s presence is baffling, unless this painting is a reference to the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, opened in 1720, with its very small stage and performances by French commedia troupes under the patronage of the 2nd Duke of Montagu. Even the otherwise erudite notes in the exhibition catalogue fail to explain this particular painting, which must have subtexts that go beyond its attractive composition. 

Once an exhibition closes there is often only the exhibition catalogue left to document its contents. James Miller’s catalogue of The Music Party is extremely good value; it contains not only detailed and perceptive comments about each item on display, but also includes photographic reproductions of all of them, together with informative introductory essays by James Miller himself on Laroon’s career and by Paul Boucher on the musical world of Laroon and John, 2nd Duke of Montagu. It is most welcome both as an authoritative guide to Laroon’s musical interests and as an inspiration to further research.