Portrait of Alfred James Hipkins

Hipkins, Edith J. (active from 1879-died ca. 1940)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1898

Height:

67.3 cm  (26 1/2 in.)

Width:

80.0 cm  (31 1/2 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

From the National Portrait Gallery website: "Hipkins entered Broadwood's factory in 1840 at the age of fourteen and became fascinated by historic keyboard instruments. The author of Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique (1881), he gave lectures and demonstrations on the subject. The harpsichord upon which he is depicted playing the Goldberg variations of Bach in this portrait by his daughter Edith is likely to be the Kirkman which she presented to the Royal College of Music in 1903. The pictures on the wall are of instruments discovered or described by Hipkins and the A439 tuning fork commemorates his work in restoring this pitch in England."

People as subjects

Hipkins, Alfred James (1826-1903) (Musician portrait)

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Harpsichord [2251]

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Schott, Howard. "The clavichord revival, 1800-1960", Early music 32/4 (2004) 595-604. RILM 2004-5192.

RIdIM record id

4405