Johannes Rach

Johannes Rach (1720 – 4 August 1783) was a Danish painter and draughtsman whose works from Copenhagen and Indonesia are a valuable source of architectural and cultural historic knowledge. He began his artistic career painting topographical views for the royal court in Copenhagen. Later he traveled to the Dutch East Indies, by way of Saint Petersburg and the Netherlands, where he settled in Batavia (present day Jakarta), and had a military career in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. At the same time he continued to pursue his artistic work with considerable commercial success. He set up a large studio with local employees who worked in his style, and produced depictions of the city and surrounding countryside for the local elite.

Johannes Rach was born in 1721 in Copenhagen to Christoffer Rach, an innkeeper and alcohol distiller, and Anne Kirstine (Christine) Christensdotter. After training with Danish court painter P. Wickman from 1736 to 1742, Rach worked for the Danish court for a few years, painting topographical pictures in a close collaboration with J. G. Hertzog. Some of their works were based on contemporary copperplate engravings from Lauritz de Thurah's architectural works Den Danske Vitruvius (1746–48) and Hafnia Hodierna (1748), which provided detailed and profusely illustrated catalogues of prominent buildings in Copenhagen and the surrounding countryside. Rach has signed some of his Danish works but many of them are signed by him and Eegberg jointly. The character and extent of their collaboration remains uncertain.

In 1745 Rach travelled to Russia, from 1747 to 1750 working as a painter and draughtsman at Empress Elizabeth of Russia's court in Saint Petersburg. Apart from topographical drawings and perspectives he also painted still life. In 1750, or shortly thereafter, Rach moved to the Netherlands where he settled as a painter in Harlem. In April 1756 he married Maria Wilhelmina Valenzijn and the following year his daughter, Christina Maria, was born.

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