Edward Francis Burney

[1][2] He studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1776, where he received encouragement from Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Much of his work was done for book illustrations, including a series for an edition of Milton's Paradise Lost.

They were never engraved, but he did work up Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music into an oil painting, now in the collection of the Tate Gallery.

The picture draws on the debate over the relative virtues of modern music (exemplified by Beethoven and Mozart) as against that of earlier composers, such as Handel, whose bust overlooks the ramshackle band of musicians in the painting, and Corelli, one of whose pieces they are playing.

Burney's uncle Charles took a leading part in the argument, on the side of the modernists.

Portrait of Frances Burney , by Edward Francis Burney, circa 1784-1785, now at the National Portrait Gallery .
The monument to George Frideric Handel in Westminster Abbey with the plaque recording his Commemoration , from "An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26, 27, 29 and June 3, 5, 1784, in Commemoration of Handel" by Charles Burney.