Über das Händel-Porträt aus dem Besitz von Charles Burney

Abstract

The main goal of the present contribution is to identify and trace back a portrait of George Frederick Handel formerly owned by music historian Charles Burney. The oil painting, attributed in Burney’s will to a certain “Wolfgang,” later described in a 1789 London newspaper advertisement, subsequently seemed to have been lost. William C. Smith, one of the foremost experts on Handel iconography, traced its location back to the 1870s without having seen it himself. The painting resurfaced, however, in 1892 in Vienna where it was exhibited at the Internationale Ausstellung für Musik- und Theaterwesen among Great Britain’s contributions. The catalogue mentions Harry E. Smith from London as the owner; as part of his estate, it was auctioned in 1928 and purchased by English Handel biographer Newman Flower, from whose estate it passed to the banker Gerald Coke. Since 1996, it has been one of the prized holdings of the Gerald Coke Handel Collection at London’s Foundling Museum. A miniature painted by Georg Andreas Wolffgang the Younger in 1737 (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) proves to be the model for the “half-length Picture of Handel, painted by Wolfgang [sic]“ that Charles Burney initially mentioned in his will.

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