Joseph Gibbs (composer)

Joseph Gibbs (23 December 169812 December 1788), was an English composer. He was not prolific, but he was not entirely unknown. Biography Gibbs was born in Dedham, Essex to John Gibbs and Judith Gibbs. He had an older brother, Edward, born four years before. Little is known of his life, until 1748, when he was appointed organist at the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich, and his first published work, Eight solos for violin with a thorough bass, appeared. Only one other work (six quartettos) is known to have been published in the remaining forty years of his active musical life. The purchase of a Gainsborough in 1928 by the National Portrait Gallery created a renewed interest in Joseph Gibbs. This painting of Gibbs was hitherto unknown and handed down through generations of Gibbs’s family who were the only ones aware of its existence. Ipswich had a lively Music Club in which Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) was a keen and passionate member. It is during this period that Gainsborough painted a portrait of his friend Joseph Gibbs. In the background of this portrait are two volumes. One is titled Corelli and the other Gem (presumably Francesco Geminiani). Acknowledgement of these name