Five men and boy, all with pale skin, crowd around a book of music propped on a wooden stand on a piano or similar instrument in this horizontal painting. Light falls across the scene from high to our left. The boy is closest to us, in the lower left corner. Shown from the shoulders up, he holds an open book but looks up at the keyboardist. His lips are mouth parted and his face deep in shadow. Three of the men appear to sing, one plays a bassoon, and the keyboardist plays with grim determination, his downturned lips pressed tightly together. The keyboardist’s eyebrows are lowered under a…
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The Singing Party

Attributed to painter Philip Mercier (French, born Germany, 1689 - 1760)

c. 1732/1760

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 73.1 x 92.1 cm (28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in.) ; framed: 92.7 x 112.1 x 6.9 cm (36 1/2 x 44 1/8 x 2 11/16 in.)
Culture
British
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CAB
Credit line
Gift of Duncan Phillips
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art