John Valentine Haidt (an anglicanization of Johann Valentin 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). He was educated at Berlin, and studied painting at Venice, Rome, Paris, and London.
When he was 45 or 46 years old, Haidt set out on an artistic career. He immigrated to British North America in 1754. He was ordained a deacon of the Moravian Church, and evangelized.
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. He died on 18 January 1780, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Paintings
Young Moravian Girl 1755–60 (Smithsonian American Art Museum) Rest on the Flight into Egypt 1754–1774 Christ Before Herod 1762 Johannetta Ettwein 1754 John Ettwein 1754 Lamentation Over the Body of Christ 1758 Christ Scourged 1758 Thomas Doubting 1758 Edward VI Granting Permission to John a Lasco to Set Up a Congregation for European Protestants in London in 1550
Works preserved at the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (partial list):
John Ettwein, 1754 Anna Nitschmann Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well Portrait of a Young Girl Nativity Nathanael Seidel Georg Neisser Martin Mack, ca. 1757/1758 Johann Michael Graff, ca. 1759/1760 Andreas Anton Lawatsch, ca. 1756/1757 The First Fruits (Erstlingsbild) Anna Rosina Anders, ca. 1759/1760 Johann Arbo Christian G. Seidel, ca. 1756/1757 Ferdinand Dettmers Leonhard Dober Abraham and Isaac Pentecost Father David Nitschmann Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf Johann and Susanna Nitschmann David Zeisberger, ca. 1761/1762 Lindsey House Staircase, I, 1752 Lindsey House Staircase, II, 1752 Zinzendorf's Grand Tour, 1719-1721, bef. 1754 The Act of Parliament, 1749, bef. 1754 Catharina Huber Friedrich Cammerhoff August Gottlieb Spangenberg Friedrich Martin Amadeus Paul Thrane, aft. 1761 Anna Maria Lawatsch Anna Mack Catharina Theodora Neisser Gottlieb Bezold (Pezold), ca. 1756/1757 Peter Boehler Paul Muenster, ca. 1761 Jesus Showing His Side Wound Martha Spangenberg Elisabeth Boehler Gertraud Graff George Burnet, ca. 1757 Ismaiah Burnet, ca. 1757 Nativity of Christ, ca. 1750
References
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
Literature Vernon H. Nelson. John Valentine Haidt: The Life of a Moravian Painter. Bethlehem: Moravian Archives, 2012.