4 July 2025

Special exhibition 2025

Bach & Friends

From July 4, 2025, the Bach House presents the special exhibition “Bach & Friends,” featuring 66 copperplate portraits of figures from Bach’s immediate circle. The exhibition is complemented by rarely seen pieces from the Bach House’s more than 100-year-old collection.

From its about 9,000-piece collection of works of art, the Museum of the New Bach Society presents rare copperplate engravings and mezzotint portraits from the Bach era. They depict individuals who were closely connected to Johann Sebastian Bach: family members, musicians and composer friends, lyricists, superiors, employers, and dedicators. Audio stations play works related to the depicted individuals. Many of the engravings were acquired and put on display when the museum opened in 1907, but as fragile paper objects they can only be displayed for a short time today.

The exhibition is complemented by other objects from the collection that, for the same reason, are rarely put on display. These include the school notebooks of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and the two original librettos of Bach cantatas from 1723 and 1725, which Bernhard Friedrich Richter discovered in 1902 in the Thomasschule when it was scheduled for demolition; the “Aria Eberliniana” by Bach’s great-uncle Johann Christoph Bach from 1690 in the handwriting of Bach’s brother of the same name; and a drawing of the island of Tahiti by Johann Sebastian Bach’s grandson of the same name from around 1775. Some pieces have never been exhibited before, others have not been exhibited for over fifty years. These rarities can be admired in the Bachhaus until the end of February 2026.

“Bach & Friends”: Special exhibition, from 4 July 2025 to 28 February 2026. Bachhaus Eisenach, Frauenplan 21, 99817 Eisenach, open 10am - 6pm every day. Tel. +49 (0)3691 79340, info@bachhaus.de.

Opening and press event: 4 July 2025, 11am.

Catalogue: A printed catalogue can be acquired for € 9.90.