Oil on canvas
31 7/8 x 25 1/4 in. (81 x 64.1cm)

Provenance: Frau Wilhelmine Burkhardt, Leipzig.
Baron Hendrik Van Tuyll Van Serooskerken (Dr. Van Tuyll), Utrecht, Holland.
Birmingham, Alabama, 1955/1956.
(Possibly) Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, sale of November 28, 1972, lot 114.
EXHIBITED:
Toronto University, 1962-1966.
LITERATURE:
Dr. H.O.R Baron van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Probleme Des Bachportrats, Utrecht, 1956, pp. 85.
Urnold Schering, Bach Jahrbuch Leipzig, 1914, numbers 1, 4 and 5, illustrated.
NOTE:
Haussmann was a German court painter and the official Leipzig portraitist after 1720. While lesser known today - his paintings rarely appear on the secondary market - he is best known for his half-length portrait(s) of Johann Sebastian Bach wearing an open jacket and holding the 'Triplex Canon.'

There are various opinions as to how many Haussmann portraits of the famed German composer were executed. There are believed to have been as many as 12 such Haussmann portraits. It is worth noting that some of these portraits may be given to Haussmann, while some may only be attributed to Haussmann. The best known such portrait, traditionally thought to be the prototype version is in the Altes Rathaus, Leipzig, painted in 1746. The latter is signed and dated "EG HauBmann pinxit 1746" on the verso (prior to the canvas being lined).
The 12 Haussmann Bach portraits Van Tuyll cites are (Ibid., pp. 85-6): We do not know if all these are painted by or attributed to Haussmann.
1. The Leipzig portrait, noted above.
2. Portrait owned by William Scheide, Princeton, New Jersey.
3. Portrait lost or destroyed during World War II.
4. The present portrait owned by Dr. Hendrik Van Tuyll.
5. Portrait from Frankfurt, Germany collection in 1914; then owned by Paul Hirsch, Cambridge, England, 1956.
6. Portrait in The Musikbibliothek Peters, Leipzig, Germany.
7. Portrait in The City Museum, Erfurt, Germany.
8. Portrait owned by Mrs. E.M. Reisenberg, New York.
9. Portrait in The Bachhauses, Eisenach, Germany.
10. Portrait owned by Paul Bach, Eisenach, Germany.
11. Portrait lost or destroyed during World War II.
12. Portrait owned by Dr. Walter R. Volbach, Fort Worth Texas.
The Haussman Bach portrait in the Altes Rathaus, Leipzig (Van Tuyll number 1) has an unclear history, apparently once in the possession of (Wilhelm) Friedemann Bach - the oldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach - from whose family it passed to the cantor August Eberhard Muller. He in turn, donated the portrait to the museum in Leipzig (J.G. Stallbaum, Osterprogramm der Thomasschule, 1852).

The portrait underwent a series of restorations from 1852 to 1913, undertaken by several different restorers. The painting was initially 'freshened up' (by an undocumented restorer). It was next restored about 1879 by Friedrich Preller the Younger, a Dresden landscape painter who heavily restored and overpainted it. In the 1890s, a Berlin restorer, *Schonfelder cleaned the painting removing Preller's work. The most notable restoration was completed in 1913 by the Leipzig painter Walter Kuhn, which coincided with the year in which the painting is documented as having been presented for permanent loan to the museum in Leipzig. Kuhn's cleaning of the portrait revealed Haussmann's once hidden signature and date, along with the additional discovery that Bach's hand and manuscript were originally in another position - all of which had been obscured by the prior restoration campaigns. The chief proponent supporting the view that the Leipzig Bach is the original Haussmann masterpiece upon which other such portraits were based was Albrecht Kurzwelly, then director of the Leipzig Museum (Bach - Dokumente Supplement zu Johann Sebastian Bach Neue Ausgabe Samtlicher Werke Herausgegen vom Bach-Archiv, Leipzig, 1963)

However, in 1960, the Dresden Institut fur Denkmalpflege dismissed the portrait's authenticity, a conclusion that has helped to fuel speculation about whether or not the 'original' Haussmann Bach is the Leipzig version. The Institut's conclusion - counter to Kurzwelly's - relegated the Leipzig portrait to being a secondary version of a missing original prototype.

The Dresden Institut's conclusion is supported by the following considerations:
1. The Van Tuyll Bach has several visual features present in the Leipzig Bach prior to its first being restored;
2. Walter Kuhn had familiarity with the Van Tuyll Bach and is believed to have relied upon the latter as the template for his restoration of the Leipzig portrait;
3. Van Tuyll's Bach was mistakenly reproduced - instead of the Leipzig Bach - in the fourth and fifth editions of Albert Schweitzer's J.S. Bach, London, 1922. This same mix-up of the Van Tuyll and Leipzig portraits occurred in the Bach biographies of Rudolf Steglich (Potsdma, 1935) and A-E Cherbuliez (Olten, 1946);
4. After 1956, the art expert and historian Dr. M.J. Friedlander stated that Van Tuyll's portrait was a "valuable work of about 1750 by an accomplished German painter," further suggesting that this portrait was either an authentic copy from Haussmann's studio or an autograph portrait by Haussmann himself (Urnold Schering, Bach Jahrbuch, Leipzig, 1914).
Additional references concerning Haussmann and the Bach portraits include: Ernst Eigismund, "The Painter of Portraits E. Bach G. Haussmann, a Gedenkblatt," Illustrated Magazine for Culture, Science and Transportation, Leipzig, 1929; and 'The Portrait Painter Elias Gottlob Haussmann and His Time: the Bach - portraits,' Magazine for art4 (2), 1950, pp. 126-135.