John Valentine Haidt

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).^[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]
• Edward VI Granting Permission to John a Lasco to Set Up a Congregation for European Protestants in London in 1550^[7]

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