Charlotte Mullins comments on Portrait of George Frideric Handel

ACCORDING to the Bath Chronicle and Herald, the celebrated composer George Frideric Handel visited the spa town on three occasions: in 1730, 1749 and 1751. Although born in Germany, he spent much of his life in Britain, working at the courts of George I and II, as well as writing dozens of independent operas and oratorios.

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He is believed to have given bells to Keynsham church near Bath in exchange for an organ, plus, in 1750, a brass offertory plate inscribed with his name. It may have been at about this time that he sat for the fashionable society portrait painter William Hoare.