Sir Edward Elgar, Bt
(1857-1934), Composer and conductorSitter in 19 portraits
Largely self-taught, Elgar came to prominence in the 1890s with high-profile commissions including the Imperial March for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee (1897). His international breakthrough came with the orchestral Enigma Variations, 1899, a series of musical portraits of his wife and friends. His reputation as a leading British composer was confirmed the following year with The Dream of Gerontius. Other works include the Pomp and Circumstance marches, 1901-7, the Violin Concerto, 1910, and the Cello Concerto, 1919, compositions which have won him renewed popularity and a vast audience in the twenty first century. He was knighted in 1904 and appointed Master of the King's Music in 1924.
Watch a film clip on the sitter from the BBC Archive in the Media section below
by Percival Hedley
bronze bust, 1905
On display in Room 28 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG 2219
by William Rothenstein
chalk, 1917
NPG 3868
by William Rothenstein
chalk, circa 1919
NPG 5707
by Herbert Lambert
bromide print, 1933
NPG P107
published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
bromide postcard print, 1900s
NPG x11904
published by Breitkopf & Hartel
postcard print, 1900s-1910s
NPG x17025
by Charles Frederick Grindrod
bromide print, circa 1903
NPG x11894
by Edgar Thomas Holding
platinum print, circa 1905
NPG x11905
by Edgar Thomas Holding
platinum print, circa 1905
NPG x11906
by James Russell & Sons
half-plate glass copy negative, circa 1910
NPG x137668
Algernon Henry Blackwood; Sir Edward Elgar, Bt
by Ernest Walter Histed
platinum print, circa 1915
NPG x19029
by Herbert Lambert
photogravure, circa 1922
NPG Ax7741
by Herbert Lambert
postcard print, circa 1922
NPG x14360
Sir Edward Elgar, Bt; Yehudi Menuhin
by Aram Alban
bromide print, circa 1930
NPG x20671
by Daily Herald
bromide press print, 1930s
NPG x184356
by Herbert Lambert, for Elliott & Fry
half-plate copy glass negative, 1942
NPG x82022
by Herbert Lambert, for Elliott & Fry
whole-plate copy glass negative, 1942
NPG x82023
The Makers of British Music: Famous Living British Composers of the Old School and the New
after Samuel Begg
relief halftone, published 24 October 1908
NPG D42284
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