Young Man with a coat and hat
  • Johann Christian Reinhart
  • Hof 1761 - 1847 Rome
  • Young Man with a coat and hat
  • Pen and brown ink, grey and brown wash, numerous framing lines with pen and ink by the artist, on light brown paper with irregular borders
  • inscribed by the artist on the lower right: F Z,
    inscribed by another hand: C. Reinhardt. fec.
  • 181 × 102 mm
Provenance:
Collection Boguslav Jolles, Dresden/Vienna (his collector’s mark on the lower right, Lugt suppl. 381a)

Like the previous artist Franz Catel, Johann Christian Reinhart occupied an important role in the circle of German-speaking artists living in Rome. He received his artistic training with Adam Oeser in Leipzig and later with the landscape painter Johann Christian Klengel (1751-1821) in Dresden. He moreover formed very close friendships with Friedrich Schiller and the Duke of Meiningen. In 1789, however, Reinhart moved to Rome, where he took centre stage alongside Asmus J. Carstens (1754-1798) and Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1839) in the artists’ colony. His heroically classical landscape panoramas were just as praised as they were sought-after by his contemporaries. The young man depicted here in an expensive travel coat, self-assured and standing with his legs wide apart in front of his luggage, which is monogrammed FZ, waits in a harbour for the continuation of his journey; he is apparently one of the numerous travelers of the Grand Tour in Italy.

The sheet does not appear in Feuchtmayr’s catalogue raisonné, but we thank Dr. Carlo Schmid for confirming the attribution.