Bach FAQ 93
What Does the Bach Seal / Bach Monogram of Johann Sebastian Bach Represent?
Johann Sebastian Bach himself designed his "Bach Seal", the seal of the Bach Family of Musicians. Bach fans today also call it the Bach Crest, Bach Monogram, Bach Sign, Bach Logo or the Bach Insignia. With a little effort, you can recognize the three letters J, S and B. Sideways correct ... just so ... as you write. Above these three letters, Bach has placed three more letters: the same ... in mirror writing. The result, later embellished together with some squiggles and finally crowned with a crown, resulted in the "official" seal of Johann Sebastian Bach for over two and a half centuries.
However: The "official" Bach Seal was not always - in these 260 years since about 1750 - the same for Bach enthusiasts. About this you can also read in detail on my website and have fun with it. Some Bach FAQ later. Why not here? The "Bach on Bach" website is a "living" work. Just as my story about Veit Bach developed over a whole eleven years. This following "Bach Seal Page" developed then simply after a next contact and a spectacular find 2022 from scratch and you reach it ... with one click here.
Few people saw the Bach Seal until 1750. Only those who received a document from Bach that carried the Bach Seal. On receipts and letters. However, it was then quite certainly the basis for the first "official" Bach Seal, which was made by a graphic artist or a painter after 1750. You can clearly see above how unclear you can see the number of prongs or cones in the crown. Really?
Already some people more might be familiar with the Bach Seal on the Bach Goblet. After all, this drinking vessel from the possession of Johann Sebastian Bach was seen by many tenthousands of visitors over many, really many decades in Leipzig, Germany and for a long time now in the Bachhaus in Eisenach, Germany. Exciting: Here the crown is missing, but under the six letters two laurel branches can be seen. Also included are 14 dots as a stylistic element (... see video note below). The goblet was made before Bach's death in 1750 and was also illustrated in many a Bach Book. Many thanks from here to Director Dr. Hansen of the Bachhaus in Eisenach, who allowed us to publish the photo above. By the way: The link at the bottom of this section takes you – as the second picture motif on this page there – to a cute video about the Bach Cup: The Riddle of the Bach Goblet.
The third Bach Seal / Bach Monogram is certainly the best known Bach Seal, measured by the number of people who have ever seen it. This is because it was created around the time between Bach's death in 1750 and the following decade. The graphic artist or painter probably also took his inspiration from the wax seal. For if he had used the glass goblet as a model, the laurel branches would be missing. He now assumed that the crown above the letters had seven cones (... because they are not jagged) or even prongs (... from "one does not break a prong from the crown" ...). And the little leaves in the later seal were at that time still small, elongated-round decorative elements. Nobody protested at that time. Bach was pretty much "out" from 1750 to 1760. And so, from 1750/1760 until 2010, for hundreds of thousands of Bach fans all over the world, the seal in the form above was connected.
The fourth Bach seal can be discovered today in front of the Bach House in Eisenach, Germany. The construct around the six letters JSB has no leaves yet, but, as on the glass goblet, dots, exactly 14. Above the six letters there is also no crown and also under the letters no laurel branches can be seen.
The fifth Bach Seal was found in Meissen Cathedral in in Meissen, Germany, in 2010. With crown, but without little leaves, but with laurel branches. The whole story can be found elsewhere on this website ... as mentioned. My thanks go of course to © Dr. Markus Zepf (Bach Archive, March 2019).
With the finding of the fifth Bach Seal above they changed the until then best known Bach Seal a little bit. The seven prongs became five prongs. And thus the sixth Bach Seal came into being. With this essential change and other unimportant ones, the Bach Seal / Bach Monogram finally got its own history. The small oval-elongated decorative elements finally became tendrils and little leaves, although they are nowhere to be found on the two now well-known historical Bach Seals. But that's okay. It turned out pretty. Here's – again the info – much, much more to learn.
The seventh Bach Seal, however, is without question the most exciting. And this sensation was discovered for fierce Bach fans and two Bach researchers –- that is, my wife and I – by the church music director Martina Pohl in Sangerhausen, Germany. This Bach Seal is known only to a few Bach fans, that is, those who did not miss the hint in the Bach Magazine 2014. After that, this dreamlike discovery disappeared again into oblivion ... and this time most certainly for all time. But ... not with "Bach on Bach." At first the find was described in detail only on one page of my website "Bach in Wechmar" ... but even there hardly ever more than "a handful" of people would read about it. Until finally, almost a whole year later, I realized: The find belongs on top of Google on position 1. And to realize this is my ambition ... in the matter of the Bach seal. Thank you for your information, Mrs. Pohl. © KMD M. Pohl
Finally, I found the eighth Bach Seal / Bach Monogram when all the texts on the Bach Monogram, really all of them, were finally finished. That's cool, because then many headings and the hints for Google have to be changed again already. What is there an editorial deadline for? In my own googling and there among the images, I found it after all: the eighth Bach Seal that wasn't published in a book or on stamps or anything else. But ... that's what Google is for. And then it turned out how valuable it can be to have a friend there, where this eighth Bach Seal / Bach Logo is fresh to photograph, because simply "steal" and publish it here ... we do not do that. Not we with our Bach Mission. The eighth Bach Seal is a part of a gate directly in front of the main entrance of the Georgenkirche in Eisenach in Thuringia, Germany the birthplace of the superstar. It is certainly the Bach Crest in its most unadorned form: There's no crown, no laurel branches, and there are no tendrils and little leaves ... not even ... dots, not 14, not even one. Thank you, dear Christian. Christian Hoske is our family researcher, and we owe him a lot. That's why here's another link ... once again. © Photo Ch. Hoske.
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