A musical party on a terrace

The Antwerp-born Joseph van Aken settled in London around 1720 with his brother Alexander who was also an artist. By 1735 he was painting draperies for a number of portrait painters including Hudson, Ramsay and Davison among others, to the extent that Horace Walpole wrote that 'almost every painter's work were painted by van Aken'.

A similar composition is in the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (see the exhibition catalogue, Manners & Morals. Hogarth and British Paintings 1700-1760, London, The Tate Gallery, 1987, p. 67, no. 43).