Your favourite portrait of a musician.

[salymap]

As this is portrait day on R3 I thought we could name our favourites.

I'm very fond of the small portrait of Dame Ethel Smyth by John Singer Sargent in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
It shows her seated at the piano and seems to personify what I know of her.

As I worked just round the corner, at one point in my life, I often spent hours in this lovely Gallery, which also had fine portraits of Gilbert and Sullivan and probably many other musicians. However, those are the ones I remember most.
I like this because it is so understated, rather than grand. It is on Google/Wiki if anyone is interested.

[Hornspieler]

The most impressive portrait that I ever saw was a life sized painting of the 'cellist Madame Guilhermina Suggia, in the Opera Theatre of the Royal Academy of Music.

HS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In my avatar, the Matterhorn has been replaced (on a temporary basis) by my favourite portrait of a musician.

[Ian Thumwood]

This is mine:-

[Hornspieler]

The most impressive portrait that I ever saw was a life sized painting of the 'cellist Clara Suggia, in the Opera Theatre of the Royal Academy of Music.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=clara+suggia&hl=en&biw=1152&bih=661&tbm=isch&tbnid=UnV4Cy7ib9ZqSM:&imgrefurl=http://www.etudogentemorta.com/2010/11/guilhermina-suggia/&docid=bTj1xiRcShT3tM&imgurl=http://www.etudogentemorta.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Madame-Suggia.jpg&w=450&h=512&ei=nYenT5G_IarE0QX3m82OBA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=895&vpy=302&dur=14969&hovh=240&hovw=210&tx=140&ty=148&sig=109383046122669955992&page=1&tbnh=150&tbnw=143&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:0,i:116

Not Clara, "Madame Guilhermina Suggia"

Click on the above link if you can.

HS

[Mary Chambers]

Benjamin Britten, circa 1920, by his Aunt Queenie (Sarah Fanny Hockey). I'm not pretending it's great art, but I like it all the same. In the National Portrait Gallery. (I'm not convinced they have the date right.)

[mercia]

a life sized painting of the 'cellist Clara Suggia

is that another Singer Sargent ? it has the look of one

[Richard Tarleton]

http://www.abcgallery.com/G/gainsborough/gainsborough32.html

A predecessor of Madame Suggia - Gainsborough's portrait of Ann Ford was discussed in the EMS on Saturday. She is portrayed holding her English guitar, but the viola da gamba which she could not play publicly because it was unladylike is suggestively half hidden behind a curtain. One of those portraits where the iconography has to be unpicked.

[gamba]

Karl Friedrich Abel, by Thomas Gainsborough. ( you'll find it on wikipedia ). I have a framed copy hanging on a wall in what I call my ' music room. '

Abel was a composer & fine player of the viola da gamba & was a great friend to Gainsborough. Abel gave him lessons on the instrument & in return Gainsborough produced several fine portraits of him.

" I am sick of portraits & wish very much to take my viol -da-gam & walk to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips (sic) & enjoy the fag end of life in quietness & ease." ( Thomas Gainsborough).

[vinteuil]

is that another Singer Sargent ? it has the look of one

the Mme Suggia is by Augustus John, no?

[mercia]

Augustus John

ah yes, oops

[EdgeleyRob]

and

[salymap]

My least favourite portrait of a musician is the full length portrait of Malcolm Sargent, by Sir Gerald Kelly, which used to hang in the Concert Hall of the RCM. For such a lively man it is static and ugly. I think it is now moved elsewhere.

[MrGongGong]

Two I'm fond of are
this

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R_z8SqoJLhQ/T0LWdyox_zI/AAAAAAAABKs/PFDWfFr5-s0/s1600/24Cage-MushroomHunting.JPG

and this

http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/press/images/wolff_lucier_cage.jpg

[Ferretfancy]

I'm fond of the Thomas Hudson Portrait of Handel in the National Portrait Gallery, partly because there's a small dab of paint in the bottom right hand corner that I paid for when they went round with the tin to buy it for the nation, or at least that's my theory!