63 cm × 93 cm (25 in × 37 in)
Wikimedia Commons
The Country Choristers, or Village Choristers Rehearsing an Anthem for Sunday as it was titled when displayed at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1810, is a genre paintingPaintings that depict scenes of ordinary people going about their everyday lives. by the English artist Edward Bird.[1] Bird was a member of the Bristol School, and was known for his depictions of everyday life in Regency England.[2]
The painting depicts a rough country pub full of old-fashioned furniture and a motley collection of patrons. The drinking and the mother and child being ejected are characteristic of scenes of drunken depravity, but in the foreground the verger is conducting a rehearsal for his church choir. Bird is depicting a “harmonious disorder expressing the essential God-fearing decency of the English working man and woman”.[1]
The painting was purchased for 250 guineas by George, Prince of Wales, on the advice of the President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West.[a]Equivalent to about £25,000 as at 2023, calculated using the retail price index.[3] George then commissioned the Scottish painter David Wilkie to produce a companion piece, Blind-Man’s Buff.[1][4]