Quantz portrait by Solimena

 

Portrait of Johann Joachim Quantz probably by the Italian painter Francesco Solimena (1657 – 1747) from Naples.

© Kulturstiftung des Hauses Hessen, owner of the picture.
The painting is reproduced by kind permission of Kulturstiftung des Hauses Hessen, Museum Schloss Fasanerie, Eichenzell near Fulda.

Quantz is holding a wooden flute with ivory ferrules in his left hand, his left arm rests over an oboe and a crumpled music manuscript atop a pedestal.

There are different markings on the back of the picture:
– left top of stretcher (in pencil) “Quantz [Musiker] und Lehrer Friedrich des Grossen auf der Flote”;
– right top of stretcher (in pencil) “Bea[bru]n” (only faintly legible);
– centre back of canvas (in ink) Joh Joachim Quanz / Flötist / geb 30 Januar zu Oberscheden (Hannover) / gest 12 Juli 1773 zu Potsdam / Lehrer König Friedrich II /Testamentarisches Geschenk/für seine kaiserliche und königliche Hoheit / den Kronprinzen / von dem am 7 Januar 1875 zu Lowenberg/ in Schlesien verstorbenen königlicher Kammer- / Musiker Moritz Hanemann

The portrait is probably made during Quantz’s grand tour in 1725 as a memento. Quantz travelled to Naples on 13 January 1725 and left Naples on 23 March 1725 and returned to Rome, as we can read in his autobiography. Francesco Solimena had an active and important studio in Naples at that time. The beautiful portrait in Schloss Fasanerie and Quantz’s grand tour illustrate the great fortune that Quantz enjoyed. Such prestigious events were usually reserved for the nobility or the very wealthy.
(see also: Early Music, 1986: Charles Walthall – Portraits of Johann Joachim Quantz)