Jakob Samuel Beck

Rabbit family, oil on canvas

Memorial plaque in Erfurt Johannesstraße 34

Jakob Samuel Beck (born March 21, 1715 in Erfurt ; † 1778 ibid) was a German painter.

life and work

He grew up as the son of a wealthy family in Erfurt. His father Georg Konrad Beck was a "councilor" and "police commissarius". He married in 1734. His house and studio were in the Erfurt Johannesstraße 36. He painted portraits and the like. a. by Karl Alexander von Württemberg , Leopold I von Anhalt-Dessau , Wilhelm Ferdinand Bachoff , Gustav Adolf von Gotter and Christian Reichart . In 1752 he was appointed " court and cabinet painter " by Duke Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach .

For the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt , he and eight other artists produced oil paintings for the “ Dance of Death ” cycle, which consists of 56 large-format pictures . Beck also painted several works on the high altar of Erfurt Cathedral : the lower altar panel, which presumably replaced an older painting, shows the Adoration of the Magi , the representation is based on the painting of the same name by Peter Paul Rubens . The image of the Holy Trinity in the essay also originally came from Beck, but it no longer exists. He also wrote the “Adoration of the Shepherds” on the south wall of the choir.

Beck was in Jelgava about a year before his death .

Beck's dance of death cycle fell victim to a large fire in the Augustinian monastery on March 7, 1872. Today there are over 14 paintings in the Erfurt Angermuseum .

List of images (selection)

image	title	year	Size / material	Exhibition / collection / owner / notes
	Vegetable still life with guinea pigs	1736	70.0 × 98.0 cm, oil on canvas
	Forest landscape with a pheasant and a weasel	1754	56 × 79 cm, oil on canvas
	Christian Reichart	1760	89.5 × 73.5 cm, oil on canvas	Angermuseum Erfurt, inv. No. G 3299. In 1867, the sculptor Georg Friedrich Carl Kölling used it as a template for a memorial.
	Fruit still life with a faience bowl	1768	63.0 × 79.0 cm, oil on canvas	Angermuseum Erfurt
	Fruit still life	1775		New museum in Weimar
	Goose in the countryside		53.7 × 69.3 cm, oil on canvas
	Ducks		60.0 × 82.0 cm, oil on canvas
	Chicken yard	1756	106 × 133 cm, oil on canvas	Privately owned
	Still life with melons on a plate
	Prey		Oil on canvas	City Art Museum in Riga in the Bredolo Collection
	Gustav Adolf Count von Gotter		Oil on canvas	Molsdorf Castle in Erfurt

literature

• Steffen Raßloff : Joy of life and transience. The painter Jacob Samuel Beck is considered to be the most important representative of the late baroque in Erfurt. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , August 17, 2013.
• Saur: General Artists Dictionary, VIII. Leipzig 1994, p. 138f.
• Johann Heinrich Meusel: Teutsches Künstlerlexikon or directory of the now-living expensive artists. Lemgo 1778, p. 8.
• Mechthild Lucke: Jacob Samuel Beck. in Contributions to the History of Art in Erfurt, Erfurt 1999.
• Martin Franke: Jacob Samuel Beck. 1715-1778. Erfurt 1999, p. 15.
• Claus Grimm: Still life. The Dutch and German champions. Stuttgart and Zurich 1988;
• Alan Chong, Wouter Th. Kloek: Still-life paintings from the Netherlands, 1550-1720. Exhibition catalog Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, June 16–19. September 1999 and Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, October 31, 1999-9. January 2000, Zwolle 1999, ISBN 978-9040093173 .
• Thomas von Taschitzki, Kai Uwe Schierz (ed.): Jacob Samuel Beck (1715–1778). For the 300th birthday of the Erfurt painter. Dresden, Sandstein 2016, ISBN 978-3-95498-195-3 .

Sources and web links

• Biography at Daxer & Marschall Munich

Commons : Jakob Samuel Beck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files