Johann David Passavant (18 September 1787 – 17 August 1861) was a German

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

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and

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.Dictionary of art
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Biography

Passavant was born in 1787 in the Free City of Frankfurt, now part of Germany. His interest in the arts was evident by an early correspondence with the artist Franz Pforr (1788–1812). He moved to

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in 1809 to further his business interests. He returned to Frankfurt in 1824 where art history evermore occupied his interest. His ''Tour of a German artist in England'' (1833 in German; 1836 translated into English by Lady Eastlake) remains a significant source for art historians, as do his catalogues of

old master print An old master print (also spaced masterprint) is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition (mostly by Old Masters). The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distingu ...

s, whose numbering is still followed by some collections. In the year 1839 he became Inspektor (curator) of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt. There he acquired important works in the prints and drawing area, mounted exhibitions, and taught. Passavant developed the three principal genres of art writing important for the next two centuries: the scholarly artistic biography, the aesthetic travelogue, and the reference survey. As a historian, he followed the romantic tradition. His paintings include ''Holy Family with Elizabeth and John'' 1819, Staadtische Galerie im Staadelschen Kunstinstitut,

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and ''A Visitation, Christ and the Samaritan'' c. 1820, Neue Nationalgalerie,

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. He died in 1861 in Frankfurt am Main.

References

External links

Short biography and bibliography

Art as Existence
Gabriele Guercio - The MIT Press, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Passavant, Johann David 1787 births 1861 deaths 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters Painters from Frankfurt Nazarene painters Burials at Frankfurt Main Cemetery