3-080-666 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Musician's Reverie, c1880s.The model for this enigmatic painting may have been the young romantic composer Hamish MacCunn who married Pettie's daughter, Alison in 1888. Pettie was an enthusiastic amateur musician and helped promote MacCunn's career by organising concerts at his own studio. Pettie depicts the young man fallen into a reverie over a music manuscript; it seems that in his imagination he is playing through the musical arrangement in a half dream state.