The Sermon of John the Baptist

Landscapes with biblical scenes or scenes from the lives of saints appear in Beich’s oeuvre from his earliest period. With the passage of time, especially after the death of the Elector of Bavaria in 1726 when Beich had ceased to work for the court as much as before, these became the most frequent subjects of his paintings. At the time Beich was executing commissions for a large noble, wealthy middle-class and ecclesiastical clientele. Also created during this period was the pair of signed paintings, now in the holdings of the National Gallery Prague, representing The Sermon of John the Baptist and The Sermon of Saint Bernardino of Sienna. Other pendant paintings by Beich with the themes of The Sermon of St John and The Sermon of St Paul are housed in the collections of the Barockgalerie in Augsburg and elsewhere (inv. no. 6387 and 6386).