A pen and ink drawing of a male opera singer performing in a classical role: standing to the left, with his head turned away; with his right hand outstretched; wearing a plumed cap or helmet, a wide-skirted tunic, a cloak and a sword.

This is a caricature of Antonio Maria Bernacchi (1685-1756) a native of Bologna who appeared in many performances in Venice, 1709-1735. He worked in Bologna, 1710-12. He also sang in London in 1716 and 1729 at the King's Theatre, Haymarket.

This drawing belongs to an album of operatic caricatures mainly by Marco Ricci and Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder, an intact album from the library of Joseph Smith. Zanetti and another Venetian collector, Francesco Algarotti, owned similar albums, with many of the caricatures copied or traced, with identifying inscriptions. Zanetti's album is now in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, and Algarotti's belongs to Albert Gellman and is in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. There is a version of this drawing in the Algarotti-Gellman Album: Croft-Murray no. 36. There is another caricature of Bernacchi in the Royal Colllection: RCIN 907304. See also the Zanetti album of caricatures in the Fondazione Cini: inv. 36422 and inv. 36661.

Opera was an important part of Venetian society and culture, and such caricatures were circulated among friends and collectors for light-hearted amusement. Joseph Smith was a keen opera lover who was married to the English opera singer Catherine Tofts and kept a box at the Teatro San Grisostomo in Venice. He collected operatic caricatures of the singers and performers of the day as well as artists and other well-known characters by Marco Ricci and others, and had them bound into this album. The drawings were shared and circulated among the three collectors and their circle as light-hearted amusement, but the artistic caricature was also a long established practice in Italian art.