ABSTRACT
On 29 July 1794 Haydn attended the Little Haymarket Theatre in London and noted the inscription over the proscenium arch: SPECTAS ET TU SPECTABERE. 1 ‘See and you will be seen’ was a lesson he took to heart. Issues concerning appearance, image and public perception, which the composer closely observed at work in the fortunes of leading theatrical and musical personalities in London, showed him just how crucial to the management of an individual’s reputation the business of portraiture was becoming. 2 As a leading personality in London in the early 1790s, the implications of this for Haydn could not be ignored. In recognizing the extent to which portraiture was treated as a growing commercial venture in late eighteenth-century London, Haydn came to appreciate how portraiture was starting to play a part in promoting music, particularly in maximizing the possibilities of earnings to be gained from music, both in the concert hall and in terms of musical publication, issues which were soon to become as meaningful in the Vienna to which he returned in 1795.
