B-14

Type:

Bach Painting

Title:

Portrait (c1820?) after Kütner

Description:

Bach in middle age. At first erroneously believed to be an early work by E.G. Haussmann and identified as the portrait which appears in the 1790 list of C.P.E. Bach’s posthumous possessions (Vogel, Wustmann III etc.), from which it in fact differs notably in format (Kurzwelly II). Technical examination of the paint and stylistic characteristics place it however in the first decades of the 19^th century and indeed as an indirect Haussmann copy via Kütner's engraving (B-13), though the canon-sheet has been omitted and the face looks considerably younger.
In spite of limited authentication it has always been one of the most popular and most frequently reproduced portraits of Bach.

Measures:

Oil on canvas
48 x 43 cm
Unsigned.

Creator:

Painter: Unknown
Year: c1820 ?

History:

In about 1828 the Leipzig flautist and Inspector of the Conservatory, Carl Grenser, reputedly obtained it from a granddaughter of Bach’s in Leipzig (?) and later bequeathed it to his son Alfred Grenser of Vienna, who had it reproduced in phototype by the Berlin music publisher Carl Simon in 1881. It was bought from Grenser in 1886 by Dr. Max Abraham for C.F. Peters in Leipzig, where it remained in the music library.

Current Location:

Musikbibliothek der Stadt Leipzig

Photograph by:

Rolf Langematz, Leipzig.

Comments:

Buy item at:

N/A

Source/Links: Bach-Dokumente IV (1979)
Contributor: Thomas Braatz (December 2007)

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