John Valentine Haidt

John Valentine Haidt (1700–1780) was a German-born American painter and Moravian preacher in Pennsylvania.

Life

Haidt was born in Danzig, Prussia (modern day Gdańsk, Poland).^[1] He was educated at Berlin, and studied painting at Venice, Rome, Paris, and London.^[2]

When he was 45 or 46 years old, Haidt set out on an artistic career. He immigrated to British North America in 1754.^[2] He was ordained a deacon of the Moravian Church, and evangelized.^[3]

Haidt is known for his early dramatic paintings depicting Biblical ideas, and his later portraits of Moravian church members and early leaders of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.^[4] He died on 18 January 1780, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.^[2]

Paintings

Young Moravian Girl c. 1755–60, oil

• Young Moravian Girl^[5] c. 1755–60 (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
• Rest on the Flight into Egypt 1754–1774^[6]
• Christ Before Herod 1762^[6]
• Johannetta Ettwein 1754^[6]
• John Ettwein 1754^[6]
• Lamentation Over the Body of Christ 1758^[6]
• Christ Scourged 1758^[6]
• Thomas Doubting 1758^[6]

References

1. "Johann Valentin Haidt - Dictionary of Art Historians". dictionaryofarthistorians.org.
2.  Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Haidt, John Valentine". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
3. Pastan, Amy (1999). Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (1. publ., 1. print. ed.). New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. p. 58. ISBN 0-8230-0193-8.
4. Morman, John F. (April 1953). "The Painting Preacher: John Valentine Haidt". Pennsylvania History. Penn State University Press. 20 (2): 180–186. JSTOR 27769412.
5. "Young Moravian Girl by John Valentine Haidt / American Art". si.edu.
6. http://bdhp.moravian.edu/art/paintings/art.html

External links

• Biography listing at Smithsonian American Art Museum
• The Painting Preacher: John Valentine Haidt by John F. Morman
• Entry at Dictionary of Art Historians