This satin playbill is an advertisement for Mrs. Vaughan's Benefit Concert in London, at the New Rooms, Hanover Square, on Monday 20th April 1807. As beneficiary Mrs. Vaughan would have been entitled to a percentage of the evening's takings for the evening, which is why she was one of the people responsible for selling tickets that could be purchased: 'at her house, No. 12, Dean Street, Soho'. At half a guinea a ticket it would have been in Mrs. Vaughan's interest to produce such unusually luxurious handbills in satin, usually reserved for programmes for special theatrical occasions, if they attracted wealthy patrons.

This concert was related to the influential series of weekly 'Ancient Concerts ‘or 'Concerts of Ancient Music' that took place annually in London in February, March and April from 1776 when they were founded by 'a committee of noblemen and gentlemen'. They were paid for by subscribers who originally paid six guineas for the season, and from 1805 seven guineas due to their increasingly fashionable status. They started in the New Rooms, Tottenham Street (later the Queen's or West London Theatre), moved to the Great Room at the King's Theatre in 1795, and in 1804 to the New Rooms, Hanover Square where they were held until 1847. They consisted of two-part vocal and choral concert music that was over twenty years old, including a significant amount of music from Handel oratorio, and work by other composers including Corelli, Gluck and Geminiani. Mrs. Vaughan performed in the 1806 series, and went on to feature in later years, as did other singers including Mr. Elliott, Mr. Bellamy, who was new to the concerts in 1807; Mr. Knyvett, and Mr. Vaughan, who all sang in the 1820 season. The counter-tenor William Knyvett (1779-1856) became conductor of the concerts from 1832 until 1840

This Benefit featured some of the best musicians of the day. Mrs. Vaughan, formerly Miss Tennant, had sung in oratorio in Covent Garden in 1800 and married Thomas Vaughan in 1806. The leader of the orchestra Franz Cramer (1772-1848) took that position for the Antient (or Ancient) Concerts in 1805 on the death of his father Wilhelm Cramer, the leader since 1780, and in 1834 was appointed Master of the King's Music. Samuel Harrison (1760-1812) a child performer and principal tenor of the concerts from 1785, was succeeded on his death in 1812 by Thomas Vaughan (1782-1843), the tenor famous for his pure and dignified singing. The conductor and organist Dr. Crotch was Wiliam Crotch (1775-1847) the first director of the Royal Academy, while the Russian violinist and composer Felix Yaniewicz (1762-1848) who made his life in England from 1790, introduced the great Catalani to the Manchester stage in November 1807 and became one of the founder members of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1813.

The weekly concerts took place on Wednesdays, except Ash Wednesdays when they took place the next day. Mrs. Vaughan's Benefit was on a Monday and although it does not state what was to be performed, the 'further particulars' that were to be advertised would doubtless have been items from one of that season's Wednesday concerts.