Portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach

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Portrait of Bach painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1746) Johann Sebastian Bach 1746.jpg
Portrait of Bach painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1746)

The Portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach are various paintings in which the Baroque German composer Johann Sebastian Bach is portrayed. The Bach portrait painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann is the best known of all and different copies of it were made over the years. Other paintings have also been discovered often with debate regarding their authenticity.

Contents

Portraits clearly identified as Bach

Haussmann, 1748 Bach.jpg
Haussmann, 1748
David, 1791 1791 David copy of 1746 Hausmann.jpg
David, 1791

Elias Gottlob Haussmann

In 1747, Bach was admitted as the fourteenth member of the Correspondierende Societät der musicalischen Wissenschaften  [ de ] (lit.'Corresponding society of musical sciences') of Lorenz Christoph Mizler, an association for musical studies founded in 1738. Under the society's rules, each member had to donate a portrait of himself to the society's headquarters. It would serve as a model for the engravings that, together with the various biographies of the members, would appear in the Musicalische Bibliothek (Musical library), the official magazine of the association. [1]

Upon joining, Bach handed in his own portrait made in 1746 by Elias Gottlob Haussmann. In it, Bach upholds the triple six-voice canon BWV 1076. The company, in fact, required candidates to submit a scientific-mathematical work as proof of their erudition. [2]

According to an oral tradition, after the dissolution of the association in 1755, the painting was donated by Mizler to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who, around 1800, donated or sold it to August Eberhard Müller, assistant to the Thomaskirche cantor Johann Adam Hiller and then his successor. Müller, in 1809, then donated it to the Thomasschule. [3]

Over the years, the portrait underwent various more or less drastic restorations: [3] in 1852 it was refreshed, and, in 1879, the painter Friedrich Preller the Younger repainted it heavily. In 1913 the Thomasschule gave it on permanent loan to the Municipal History Museum in Leipzig, where it underwent further restoration and where it still stands today. In 1960 it was examined by the Dresden Institut für Denkmalpflege, which confirmed the numerous operations it underwent. [4]

A 1748 copy of Haussmann's painting belonged to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, then passing to Johann Christian Kittel. Subsequently, after the latter's death, it was purchased from an antique dealer in Berlin by the Jenke family. [5] Some argue that this is the original portrait that Bach gave to Mizler's society, and that the previous one is the replica. In this case, the dates of the two portraits should be reversed. [6]

In 1791, Johann Marcus David  [ de ] made a copy of the authentic portraits executed by Haussmann. It resembled the 1746 portrait in the features of the dress and the 1748 portrait in the face. As to its origin, it may have been commissioned by Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814), known to have been in possession of a portrait of Bach, and, after him, the painting may have passed to Georg Pölchau. The last owner of it, Helene Brest, died in the Battle of Berlin in 1945 during the World War II, and later her painting was destroyed. [7]

Possible portraits

References

  1. Buscaroli 2017, p. 1072.
  2. Basso 1983, pp. 187–188.
  3. 1 2 3 Candé 1990, p. 298.
  4. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  5. "Bach in Arts – Bach Portrait (Hussmann, replica 1748)". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  6. Buscaroli 2017, p. 1071.
  7. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  8. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  9. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Candé 1990, p. 299.
  11. Richards, Annette (20 September 2022). The Temple of Fame and Friendship: Portraits, Music, and History in the C. P. E. Bach Circle. University of Chicago Press. p. 279. ISBN   978-0-226-81677-7 . Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  12. "The Face of Bach – The Meiningen Pastel – Bach Through the Eyes of His Relatives". Archived from the original on 21 November 2001. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  13. 1 2 "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  14. "I ritratti di Johann Sebastian Bach". macbach.org. Archived from the original on 11 December 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  15. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  16. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  17. "Bach Memorabilia – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  18. 1 2 "The Face of Bach – Queens College Lecture (10) A Description of the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment". npj.com. Archived from the original on 6 May 2001. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  19. "Bach Memorabilia – Bach Engraving". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  20. "Bach in Arts – Bach Painting". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.

Bibliography