A river landscape with the Flight into Egypt

The court painter to Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, Beich travelled to Italy in 1704, where he stayed until 1715, initially in Rome, where landscape painting was dominated by foreigners such as Jan Frans van Bloemen, Christoph Ludwig Agricola and Franz Werner von Tamm, a circle he joined. Moving to Livorno, Beich was equally successful, with a reputation that made him sought after as a teacher. In Naples even Francesco Solimena admired him, and Bernardo de Dominici's praise of his naturalism in his Vite de Pittori of 1743 testifies to his impact. Returning to Munich in 1715, Beich painted further commissions for the Bavarian court, including a series of views of the ruler's summer residences for Schloss Nymphenberg, and battle scenes for Schleissheim.