Manuscript DS in German , signed “J. S. Bach,” one page, 4 x 2, circa June-July 1748. Receipt headed "Legatum Lobwasserianum, 1748," by which Bach confirms receipt of two guilders from the Lobwasser Bequest at St. Thomas's in Leipzig. Following his signature, Bach writes: "acc[epi] - 2 fl." Above and below Bach's signature, his colleagues Conrad Benedict Hülse and Abraham Kriegel sign for their payment of the same. This sum was paid out around every July 2nd to the cantor, deputy headmaster, and third teacher (tertius) at St. Thomas. It represents one of Bach's several sources of supplementary income which together made up a substantial part of his Leipzig salary, roughly equivalent to an organist's weekly wages. Handsomely mounted, matted, and framed with a portrait and engraved plaque to an overall size of 17 x 13 In fine condition, with even toning, light staining, and slightly chipped edges; two corners of the frame are chipped.
The "Legatum Lobwasserianum," a legacy of 1000 guilders, was bequeathed in 1610 by a Leipzig lawyer's pious widow, Maria Lobwasser; the 50 guilders of annual interest, paid on the Feast of the Visitation, went toward supporting St. Thomas's church and school personnel. This is one of only two known receipts from Bach receiving his Lobwasser funds. The other, from 1750, was originally written on the same sheet of paper underneath the entry for 1748, but the two records were later cut apart and separated.
Curiously, the relevant entry for 1749 must have been made in another, now lost document, as a date "1749" and Hülse's stricken-out signature, apparently made here in error, appear at the bottom of the present slip of paper (formerly between the 1748 and 1750 records). The small octavo leaf, removed from a receipt book, was complete in 1908 when it was offered at C. G. Boerner's sale of 'precious autographs from a Viennese private collection' (lot 3). The buyer was probably the noted Swiss collector Karl Geigy-Hagenbach, in whose 'album of manuscripts by illustrious personages,' published in 1925, it was again illustrated intact. The receipt's location was subsequently unknown until May 1986, when the present upper half of the sheet appeared at Christie's manuscripts sale (lot 271). It was likely acquired there by the Canadian chemist and physician Frederick Lewis Maitland Pattison (1923-2010) and subsequently sold by the New York dealer Kenneth W. Rendell (his description pasted on the reverse of the frame) to the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris; acquired from their sale.
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