"Czech Vasari" Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn (1739-1802)

"Czech Vasari" Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn (1739-1802) and his conception of the history of visual arts in Bohemia

Provider: Czech Science Foundation, No. 23-05042S
Time: 2023–2025
Beneficiary: National Gallery
Principal investigator: Radka Heisslerová
Co-beneficiary: Institute of Art History of Czech Academy of Science
Co-beneficiary investigator: Jana Marešová

One of the most prominent personalities among the artists of the second half of the 18th century in the Czech lands was Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn (1739–1802), a painter, draftsman, member of the Vienna Academy of Painting and a valued connoisseur. He dealt with painting on both a practical and theoretical level. His artistic work is rated relatively high, but he is even more valued for his work in the field of art theory. In literature Jahn is often referred to as the first art historian in the modern sense, art critic and also as the Czech Vasari, because he was the first local biographer of artists. His manuscript on the history of visual arts in Bohemia, preserved in the artist's written estate in the Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, is still not fully appreciated. The project will focus in particular on the circumstances of the creation of the unique manuscript and Jahn's relations not only with contemporary Czech, but also foreign personalities, through research of archival sources and contemporary literature, which has not yet been undertaken in this regard.

Illustration: Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn, Zeichenbuch für Künstler und Liebhaber der freyen Handzeichnung, insbesondere als ein nöthiger Theil der Erziehung höherer Bestimmung behandelt, Prag 1803, tab. X. (foto Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Public Domain Mark 1.0, https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18552#0053)