JOHANN CHRISTIAN REINHART (1761-1847)

Johann Christian Reinhart was born in Hof, Bavaria in 1761 and died in Rome in 1847. He studied theology initially in Leipzig, then devoted himself to painting as a student of Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717-99), often making copies of classical works, including plaster casts of antique statues. He was greatly influenced by Claude Lorrain's "Liber Veritatis" and on his visit to Dresden, in 1783, by the Dutch landscape paintings in the Gemäldegalerie.

In 1785, he returned to Leipzig where he met the German poet, Friedrich Schiller, who became a close friend and undoubtedly affected his developing artistic style. He was painter to the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen between 1786 and 1789 for whom he executed above all, landscapes and portraits. This appointment enabled him to discover at leisure, the surrounding Thuringian countryside inspiring spontaneous sketches as he walked.

In 1789, he established himself in Rome and was one of the major protagonists of the German art movement. There, he was renowned there for eight large landscapes in distemper painted in 1825 at the Villa Massini and he executed four paintings of the same type for King Louis of Bavière.