Harmony and Disharmony Gallery2-The Harmonious Family

The Harmonious Family (Twelve Illustrations to Contemporary Life and Diversions)

Robert Dighton (1752–1814)
The Harmonious Family (Twelve Illustrations to Contemporary Life and Diversions)
date unknown
Pen and ink and wash

Robert Dighton combined his career as a printmaker and dealer with acting and singing on stage at Sadler’s Wells. As a caricaturist, he had a particularly keen eye for the foibles of polite society. Here, he ridicules the notion of musical harmony as a metaphor for balanced personal and social relations, depicting instead the pursuit of self-interest at the cost of familial and social cohesion. In this family of musical amateurs, each grotesque figure is concerned only with the sound of his or her own instrument, resulting in a cacophonous disharmony. The instruments shown — violin, cello, square piano, oboe, flute, bassoon and horn — were all used in chamber music at the turn of the nineteenth century. 

YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART, PAUL MELLON COLLECTION 

B1986.29.82