Gaetano Caffarello (1710-1783) was one of the leading singers of the 18th Century. Of high mezzo-soprano castrato voice, David Garrick remarked that 'he pleased me more than all the singers I have heard. He touched me ; and it was the first time that I have been touched since I came into Italy'. Dr. Burney was no less impressed, and recorded that the composer Porpora 'who hated him for his insolence, used to say that he was the greatest singer Italy had ever produced'. Second only to Farinelli, and more admired by some, he enjoyed a triumphantly successful international career, which took him to London in 1737-8, where he created the title rôles in Handel's Faramondo and Serse, to Madrid, where he sang at the wedding of the Infante Philip in 1739, to Versailles in 1753 at the invitation of King Louis XV to sing to the pregnant Dauphine and to Lisbon in 1755, where he survived the earthquake.

A temperamental figure seemingly drawn from the pages of a picaresque novel, Caffarello was imprisoned on more than one occasion, and was frequently involved in off-stage duels as well as on-stage fights. On his retirement he bought himself a Dukedom, an estate in Calabria and a palace in Naples. The present sheet must date from one of Caffarello's visits to Rome (1730, 1735 and 1754), and judging from the age of the sitter probably the latter trip.

The name of Caffarello is invoked with affectionate nostalgia by Doctor Bartolo in Rossini's Barber of Seville