B-08

Type:

Bach Painting

Title:

Meiningen pastel

Description:

Long-disputed picture, unsigned, undated and only connected with J.S. Bach by an oral tradition in the Meiningen branch of the family, but finally included by Besseler (1) in the “Five genuine Portraits”.

Measures:

Large anonymous pastel (TNT); Wood covered with parchment (Bach-Dokumente).
48 x 38.8 cm (TNT); 16 x 13 in a later frame (Bach-Dokumente).
First published by Karl Geiringer (New York, 1950).

Creator:

Karl Bernhard Paul Bach of Munich has declared it to be the work of his great-grandfather, the Meiningen court organist and cabinet painter Gottlieb Friedrich Bach (1714-1785), son of the Meiningen Court Kapellmeister Johann Ludwig Bach (cf. no. 359), and presumably painted when Gottlieb Friedrich Bach visited Leipzig, where his brother Samuel Anton (1713-1781) went to study in May 1732 and was a frequent guest in Johann Sebastian’s house (cf. nos. 402 and 403). It may have been left there as a present, and bequeathed to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in which case it can be identified as the pastel the latter is known to have owned (cf. p. 397); finally it may have returned to Meiningen and been directly inherited by Paul Bach.
Besseler (I) takes the colorful robe to be be official dress of the Dresden Court Composer and therefore dates the picture as 1736/37, bringing in supporting ophthalmological evidence to strengthen the theory that it was painted from life. Freyse (VI) opposes him, using an examination of style and technique to argue that it was a posthumous painting of about 1780 contrary to family tradition) and attributes it to the more famous Meiningen painter Johann Philipp Bach (1752-1846), the son of Gottlieb Friedrich Bach, who possibly executed it from original sketches by his father or uncle.
Year: c1741 (TNT)

History:

Most recently in the possession of Karl Bernhard Paul Bach (1878-1968) of Munich.

Current Location:

Original in the possession of Mrs. Anneliese Ortner, née Bach, Munich.

Photograph by:

Reproduced from a four-color print by E.A. Seemann, Leipzig, 1955.

Comments:

Buy book at:

Amazon.de [Bach-Dokumente]

Source/Links: Bach-Dokumente: Bilddokumente zur Lebensgeschichte Johann Sebastian Bachs: Bd 4 (Bärenreiter, 1979) | The Face of Bach
Contributor: Aryeh Oron & Thomas Braatz (December 2007 - January 2008)