This watercolor was exhibited at the Dudley Gallery in 1869 under the title A Song, the name A Prelude by Bach was given to it later. Eight young men and women are moved by the song being performed, echoing the words of the Duke at the beginning of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: ‘If music be the food of love, play on'. They wear vaguely eighteenth-century or Regency dress, a motif reinforced by such details as the tapestry on the far wall, the Sheraton-style chair on which one of the listeners sits, and the harpsichord of ebonised wood inlaid with bone or ivory, said to be based on one that had formerly belonged to the Prince Regent at Carlton House.
