A gathering at Joshua Reynolds's house: Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke among the company. Stipple engraving by W. Walker, 1848, after J.E. Doyle.

The drinks are being served by a black servant, presumably Francis Barber, and paintings by Reynolds are shown on the back wall. These features, and the lettering, imply that the event is a meeting of "The Club" (also known as the Literary Club, or Johnson's Literary Club) which was founded by Reynolds in 1764. However, the Club met not at Reynolds's house at 47 Leicester Square but nearby at the Turk's Head tavern in Gerrard Street and from 1783 at Prince's, in Sackville Street