The Search for the Portrait that Belonged to Kittel Pages at The Face Of Bach
The Queens College Lecture of March 21, 2001 - Page 8 - The 1748 Haussmann Portrait
These pages have been designed and constructed using a monitor set to the 1024x768 pixel configuration,
and the visitor will derive the most reward from the site using a monitor so configured.
The Face Of Bach
This remarkable photograph is not a computer generated composite; the original of the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, all that
remains of the portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach that belonged to his pupil Johann Christian Kittel, is resting gently on the surface
of the original of the 1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait, Courtesy of William H. Scheide, Princeton, New Jersey
Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, ca. 1733, Artist Unknown, Courtesy of the Weydenhammer Descendants
Photograph by Teri Noel Towe
©Teri Noel Towe, 2001, All Rights Reserved
The Search for the Portrait that Belonged to Kittel
The Queens College Lecture of March 21, 2001
Page 8
The 1748 Haussmann Portrait
Important Note: This page in under major revision
In light of information subsequently obtained, much of it from John Eliot Gardiner, who also discusses the recent provenance of the painting in his book, much of this discussion has to be completely revised. Please read this page with caution (TNT, December 2014).
Fortunately, there is nary a problem with the condition of the painted surface of the 1748 version of the Haussmann portrait.
As I mentioned earlier, I have had the good fortune to know the original well, and I have spent many pleasant hours in its company
during the course of the past 34 years. Now in the collection of my treasured friend, mentor, and fellow Princeton Tiger, William H.
Scheide, in Princeton, New Jersey, the painting is in a superb state of preservation, and it provides a wealth of detail that has, in
effect, been cleaned off of the 1746 canvas or been obscured by repainting.
I can speak only of my own reactions. The 1748 Haussmann portrait is a powerful painting, one with a freshness, a vibrancy, and
an immediacy that I do not feel while looking at the 1746 Haussmann portrait.
There is no denying that the picture's remarkable state of preservation is an important factor in the impact that it has on the viewer.
In my own case, I can honestly say that that impact is undimmed after 34 years of "friendship."
And, precisely because it is so well preserved, it is, as far as I am concerned, the principal and primary image to use for
comparative purposes.
While C. P. E. Bach had long been known to have owned an original Haussmann portrait of his father, its whereabouts remained
unknown for over 150 years. That the painting had even survived was not known until 1950, when Hans Raupach announced its
existence in his little monograph Das wahre Bildnis Johann Sebastian Bachs. The black and white photograph on the left is the
frontispiece of Raupach's book, the color photograph is one that I took of the painting on November 8, 2000.
The 1748 Haussmann is not exempt from controversy, however, nor has it been immune to attack. Besseler, for example, dismisses
it completely, preferring to rely instead on the 1791 J. N. David copy of the 1746 Haussmann Portrait, a curious position, to say the
least.
Part of the problem comes from what is evidently the only significant restoration to which the 1748 Haussmann portrait has been
subjected. The canvass has been relined, and when it was relined, probably early in the 20th century, the inscription on the back of
the original canvass was "transferred" (i.e., copied) on to the back of the relined painting.
Photograph by Greg Kitchen, © Teri Noel Towe, 2001
The problems with the transferred inscription, apparently, are two-fold.
First of all, the text of the inscription "deviates from Haussmann's usual type of signature." (Neumann, BDL, p. 402)
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the accuracy of the transcription of the date -- 1748, rather than 1746 -- has been a source
of controversy.
There are several reasons for this. First, the "8" could be a misread "6". If that were to prove to be the case, a disconcerting
anomaly would be explained away. The apparent two year discrepancy has gnawed at scholars, who consistently seem to assume
that the replica had to have been a part of a "two for one" package deal that Bach negotiated with Haussmann. Such a "discount
package" concept is appealing, but it is based on the assumption that the inscription originated with Haussmann, an assumption that
I now reject as both unwarranted and incorrect.
I now firmly believe not only that the inscription did not originate with Haussmann, but also that it was added after the deaths of
both Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. But a detailed discussion of why I have come to that conclusion will have to
wait for another day, in part because I haven't done all of my homework on this question yet and in part because it is clearly way
beyond the scope of this presentation.
The provenance of the 1748 Haussmann is not certain, by any means, but the description that Burney provides in his 1772 account
of his visit with C. P. E. Bach in Hamburg makes it clear that C. P. E. had the painting in his possession by that time. The next gap
comes after his death. That the painting remained in the possession of his widow and spinster daughter is proven by its inclusion in
the official estate inventory of 1790.
Who bought it when it was eventually sold in 1796 or 1797, is not known, but, according to the Jenke family, from whom Bill
Scheide obtained the painting in the early 1950s, the painting had been acquired "from a Berlin antique dealer sometime after 1800"
(Neumann, BDL, p. 402). Certain tantalizing clues on the back of the frame and on the stretcher suggest, however, that the painting
changed hands more than once between its sale by the heirs of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and its acquisition by the Jenke family,
whenever that took place during the 19th century.
When Bill graciously allowed me to make my own photographs of the painting for the first time last November, he also graciously
permitted the examination of the painted surface with a so-called "black light". This ultra-violet light causes buildups of varnish to
turn an eerie olive green and recent overpainting to turn dark and opaque. Our examination of the painted surface of the 1748
Haussmann Portrait revealed that, apart from one tiny repair to the background, a repair that is documented, the paint is pristine and
as "original" as it was the day it left Haussmann's studio.
It may never be "proven" that the 1748 Haussmann Portrait is a portrait from life, as I believe it to be, and not a replica of the 1746
Haussmann Portrait, but those who have been in the presence of the original will need no convincing.
No description of this icon of musical portraiture could possibly be more accurate or more eloquently expressed than Christoph
Wolff's explanation of the raison d'etre for the Haussmann portraits in his new monograph, Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned
Musician; with one significant exception that will become obvious in a few minutes, it cannot be bettered, and I hope that
Christoph, who is a valued colleague and friend, will forgive me for quoting it in extenso:
"When portrait painter Elias Gottlob Haußmann depicted the Leipzig town council in 1746, he painted the councillors in
their official likenesses -- in serious pose, formal attire, periwig, and sometimes with specific attributes identifying their
function....The same pattern applies to Haußmann's portrait of Bach..., in which the subject's right hand holds a page of
music, but not just any old music. The cantor shows us a sheet inscribed with three short lines of musical notation and
the inscription, Canon triplex à 6 Voc[ibus] per J. S. Bach (triple canon for six voices, by J. S. Bach), an encoded text
whose complex musical contents would remain obscure to the general viewer and challenge even the well versed
musician. A similar portrait by Haußmann of Johann Gottfried Reiche (1727), senior member of the town music
company, shows Reiche holding his trumpet and a sheet of music bearing an extremely difficult passage -- one that
probably only he could play.
Bach displays what he considers his trademark, the short but highly sophisticated canon, BWV 1076, an emblem of his
erudite contrapuntal art. By not having a keyboard instrument included in the picture, he chose to disclaim his fame as
a virtuoso performer. And by not clasping a paper roll, the conductor's attribute (As Johann Hermann Schein, an
earlier Thomascantor, does in his portrait), Bach elected to play down his office as cantor and music director. The
austere expression worn by the composer in this [so far] only authentic portrait corresponds well to the musical
statement.
In the portrait, Bach the man takes a back seat to his work, and this is how we have always understood him, and how
we ordinarily see him: compared with his imposing oeuvre, the human being seems of secondary importance." (Wolff,
JSBTLM, 2000, pp. 391 - 392, footnotes omitted)
The distinction between the "public" Bach and the "private" Bach, the distinction between Bach as a professional musician and
Bach as a musical intellectual, is of crucial importance, not only to the understanding of the Bach iconography as a whole but also
to the raison d'etre for the lost Kittel portrait, and therefore to the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, in particular. And the effects
of this distinction should not be discounted or overlooked. Christoph Wolff's compelling observation that, "compared with
[Bach's] imposing oeuvre, the human being seems of secondary importance" has implications that go far beyond the distinction
between the public Bach and the private Bach. That so few of us are as concerned with Bach as a human being in general, and with
what he looked like in particular, as we are with his "imposing oeuvre", the Himalayas of Western music, also means that most do
not really care what he looked like and therefore have not troubled to study his face and his physiognomy to the degree that they
otherwise might. Most think that they know what he looked like, but, as we shall see in our examination of his physiognomical
characteristics, all of us, in fact, know his face much less intimately than we think.
There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that the persona we see in the Haussmann portraits is the persona that Bach sought to
immortalize visually in the only portrait image that, so far, he is known to have commissioned, and even then perhaps with some
reluctance and trepidation. The Haussmann image is Sebastian Bach as he wanted himself to be seen by posterity, and, when one
considers the multitude of images that have been derived from this basic image over the course of the past 250 years, it is clear that
in that goal he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. It is everywhere, and its omnipresence subliminally tints our attitudes
towards "competing" personae with a power that borders on the draconian. The Haussmann Bach is on coffee mugs. It is on
sweatshirts. It is on bar towels and tote bags. It is on the sides of buildings. There are psychedelic versions and surreal ones. It is
on chiming clocks and foulards. It has even been the model for a porcelain coffee pot.
The Haussmann portrait of Bach is the equivalent of the Athenaeum Portrait of George Washington.
Please click on 
to advance to Page 9.
Please click on 
to return to the Index Page at The Face Of Bach.
Please click on 
to visit the Johann Sebastian Bach Index Page at Teri Noel Towe's Homepages.
Please click on the 
to visit the Teri Noel Towe Welcome Page.
TheFaceOfBach@aol.com
Copyright, Teri Noel Towe, 2000 , 2002
Unless otherwise credited, all images of the Weydenhammer Portrait: Copyright, The Weydenhammer Descendants, 2000
All Rights Reserved
The Face Of Bach is a PPP Free Early Music website.
The Face Of Bach has received the HIP Woolly Mammoth Stamp of Approval from The HIP-ocrisy Home Page.
