Humming birds, or, A dandy trio !!! [graphic]

"Three fashionable dandies (see No. 13029) in a well-furnished room. One (left) sings, seated, and with a leg resting on a second (lyre-backed) chair; he leans sentimentally, hand on heart, towards a lutenist reclining on a (Regency) sofa playing an ornate curiously shaped instrument. The third stands behind the sofa, playing a flageolet, and admiring himself in a mirror above the ornate fireplace. The vocalist holds an open music-book: 'Love has eyes.' On the floor beside him are two others: 'The Lovesick Swain set to Music' and 'Our Warbling Notes and Ivory lutes Shall ravish every ear.' Two whole length portraits flank the mirror, one of a lady in quasi-Elizabethan dress, the other of a man similarly dressed, both having pinched waists and full busts. Below one is a picture of 'Vacuna' [Goddess of rural leisure], a blowzy woman lying under a tree; below the other, a grotesque 'Narcissus' admires his reflection. On the end of the sofa sits a grotesquely clipped (and dandified) poodle suckling puppies."-- British Museum online catalogue