Porträt Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803)

Portrait of Johann Gottfried von Herder. The German poet appears here as a chest pattern in the half profile to the left. He turned his head and looks past the viewer on the right. He wears a cloak with fur, which wraps the rest of his clothes, a stately fur collar rounds off the whole. Nor does he wear a wig, but presents himself with his shaken hair. Johann Gottfried von Herder studied theology in Königsberg and dealt with the writings of Immanuel Kant or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was then appointed to the cathedral school in Riga in 1764, which he left a few years later, since a professor from Halle, Christian Adolph Klotz (BS-III 572), along with his followers, hostile to his poetry and reviews. He then spent some time as a travel preacher with the hereditary prince of Holstein-Gottorp Peter Friedrich Wilhelm in Europe, where he also met Goethe. Later, he settled in Weimar as Oberpfarrer and first preacher to the city church of St. Peter and Paul. The effigy was created by Moritz Steinla (1791-1858), who worked as a reproduction engraver in Dresden. As a template he used a painting by Friedrich Rehberg (1758-1835) from around 1800, which is probably still in the Goethe National Museum in Weimar. Also a specimen of the present leaf appears to be there. Other copies of the paper are now in the Berlin State Library, the Duke August Library in Wolfenbüttel and the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Signature: Matched by Fried. Rehberg. Stenched by Moritz Steinla. Inscription: I. G. v. HERDER. (Stiftung Händel-Haus Halle Foundation)