Una cantatrice inglese a Venezia - a portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Billington, by Louis Gauffier, 1795

 

The opera singer - also known for her abilities at the keyboard - is portrayed in an apartment overlooking the Piazzetta di San Marco in Venice.

Between marriages - her first husband had died the year before - she is barely clothed in the currently very fashionable - and very sheer - "Grecian" style.
(Some bold ladies were actually naked beneath these gowns, most wore pink or flesh-colored undergarments to give the illusion of nudity.)

I love this charming musical vignette. I'm also very intrigued by the rather crude foot pedal linked to the underside of the keyboard by a blue chord.

The figure leaning on the balustrade may represent an actual person or be just a compositional device. The winged "Lion of Venice" is seen atop its granite column.

The portrait is signed by Gauffier as having been completed in Florence, and the singer appears to have only been resident
in Naples and then, later, Florence during 1795. So it's possible the Venetian setting may have merely been imagined.

*

Elizabeth Billington (27 December 1765, London – 25 August 1818, Venice), British opera singer.

I don't know that I'd ever heard of Elizabeth Billington, but she has a surprisingly extensive - though rather awkwardly cobbled together - Wikipedia entry.