Johann David Passavant

Johann David Passavant ( born September 18, 1787 Frankfurt am Main, † August 17, 1861 ) was a German art historian.

Passavant originally wanted to be a painter and went in 1813 for the first time to Italy. In Rome he was made ​​known by the art-loving Baron Karl Friedrich von Rumohr with Florentine painting. Three years later he joined the Nazarenes. He was friends with Peter von Cornelius, Ferdinand Olivier, Friedrich Overbeck, Johann Anton Ramboux, Julius Schnorr von Carol Field, Wilhelm von Schadow and Philipp Veit.

His sponsor, Baron Karl Friedrich von Rumohr, who recognized his talent as a writer on art. Passavant, in turn, promoted the promising painter Carl Philipp Fohr.

Passavant recognized as one of the first to the outstanding importance of Giotto for the development of Western painting, celebrating him as a pinnacle of Florentine art history. In 1840, Passavant was appointed inspector of the Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt am Main. In this position, he did out of the ordinary as the discoverer ( and buyers ) of late medieval painters and their works of art.

Painted for the Emperor gallery of Romer and he donated the portrait of Henry II ( HRR ).