Jacopo Amiconi’s 1752 painting depicts Carlo Broschi Farinelli, the most famous castrato singer at the time, along with his network of important Italian ex-patriot friends, including other famous painters and poets.
This event took place in Madrid, where the four would live and work for a time. The center of the painting is Jacopo Farinelli who was a singer in the Spanish Court, holding a sheet of music that he is known to have written. Opera Soprano Teresa Castellini sits to his left, flanking the left is Poet Pietro Metastasio, and the artist himself flanks the right-hand side. Farinelli and his Friends was commissioned shortly before he retired from his prestigious role in the Spanish court and he is known to have taken the painting home with him when he retired to Italy.
Jacopo Amiconi’s Farinelli and his Friends is currently in the National Gallery of Victoria, in Australia.