The Early Music Show - Gainsborough's Georgian England

Thomas Gainsborough had a deep love of music and many of his portraits include musical themes. He was himself a keen amateur player of the gamba and he included many musicians as friends, and as subjects for his portraits. Catherine Bott meets art historian and author of several books on the artist, Michael Rosenthal of Warwick University, for an exploration of what the Gainsborough portraits tell us about the role of music in the late 18th century. The programme includes comment about Gainsborough's portraits of Karl Friedrich Abel; Johann Christian Bach; and the Linley family, as well as paintings of some notable amateurs from the English gentry such as William Wollaston and the redoubtable Anne Ford.