Advertising poster using a detail from 'The Gentle Shepherd'

Small blue monochrome poster mounted on card using detail from Sir David Wilkie's 'The Gentle Shepherd'. The poster was used to advertise the exhibition Pipes, Harps and Fiddles held at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh from August to September 1976.

Sir David Wilkie's 'Gentle Shepherd' was chosen to advertise the first festival exhibition held in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1976 because the stock-and-horn which the shepherd is playing represents one of the earliest stages of the development of the bagpipe in Scotland. Little is known of the origins of the stock-and-horn, but it is assumed to belong to the musical family of the Hornpipe which was probably found all over Europe and survived in Scotland possibly until the 18th century. It was adopted symbolically as the shepherd's pipe in Allan Ramsay's pastoral drama 'The Gentle Shepherd'.

In its origins, the Highland bagpipe in common with other European and World bagpipes is a prehistoric wind instrument. Its main elements are the melody pipe or 'chanter' on which the music is played with the fingers (usually on a scale of nine notes) and with an accompanying fixed note or chordal accompaniment from the drone or drones, all of which are held in stocks tied into an animal skin bag (now coming to be replaced by synthetic materials). The player blows into the bag to supply a constant pressure and flow of air onto the reeds which are set into the chanter and drones and which make the sound. The air flow is controlled by a simple non-return valve on the blowstick.