ABSTRACT
The awakening English interest in Bach included curiosity about his appearance. This chapter examines what little is known about likenesses of Bach that circulated in England before 1830. Almost no information on this subject is provided in Werner Neumann's standard reference book on Bach iconography. Two engravings of Bach came to England soon after they were published in Germany. The title-page of the first volume of the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, which was supplied with the index to the volume after its completion in September 1799, featured an engraved vignette of Bach. In a list of the Society's portraits prepared about 1950, the name 'Clark of Eton' was typed next to a description of the painting. The evidence that has been extracted from its paint, canvas and stretcher has been insufficient to date this portrait precisely, although to one well-placed observer it appears to be of English origin and to have been painted in the early nineteenth century.
