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 right. He turned his head and looks past the viewer on the left. He wears a cape that wraps the rest of his clothes and shows only his jabot. 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 Italian engraver Faustino Anderloni made this steel engraving by the writer. As a template he probably used a picture of the German portrait and history painter Gerhard von Kügelgen. Other copies of the paper are in the British Museum in London, the Munich State Graphic Collection and the Austrian National Library of Vienna. Signature: Framed by G. v. Kügelgen. Stake by Faustin Anderloni. Inscription: HERDER Bey Artaria & Fontaine in Manheim. (HänHändel-Haus Halle Foundation)