drawing
- Museum number
- 1964,0613.2
- Description
-
Portrait of Charles Burney, D.D.; head and shoulders to front, head slightly to right and looking r, wearing jacket and cravat
Pen and brown ink, grey wash and watercolour on original wash mount
- Production date
- 1760-1817
- Dimensions
-
Height: 198 millimetres
-
Width: 156 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Charles Burney, D.D. (1757-1817) was one of the most famous classical scholars of the 18th century, and ran a school in Hammersmith from 1786 which he moved to Greenwich in 1793. He took orders late in life, and was conferred with the degree of D.D. in 1812. His later years were devoted to the accumulation of a vast valuable library which after his death was sold to the nation and deposited in the British Museum under the name the 'Burney Library'. Thirteen volumes of prints and drawings of theatrical interest are in the Dept. of Prints and Drawings (see User's Guide).
He was the son of Charles Burney, the historian of music, and the cousin of the artist Edward Francis Burney. The P & D register records that this drawing is on paper watermarked 1811, but it is laid down on a contemporary mount and the watermark may be of the mount paper, as the sitter appears to be younger than fifty-four. It is possible that the portrait is of Charles Burney's son, the Reverend Charles Parr Burney (1786-1871), who took over his father's school in 1813.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1964, BM, Recent Acquisitions, no.42
- Acquisition date
- 1964
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1964,0613.2
