Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein

Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein (also ripe stone and Reffenstein; born November 22, 1719 Ragnit (formerly East Prussia ); † October 6, 1793 in Rome) was in the time of the Enlightenment German Cicerone for prominent travelers, a painter, antiquarian and art agent in Rome.

Life

After the jurisprudential studies at the University of Königsberg learned Reiffenstein in his capacity as secretary of the German Society in Königsberg know the Leipzig scholar and founder of the German Societies Johann Christoph Gottsched. After a stopover at the Hessian court in Kassel, he accompanied the son of Count Rochus to Lynar on his study trip through Europe 1760-1762 and so came to Italy, where he became convinced of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his circle in Rome to stay. In 1767 he moved into its final flat on the ground floor of the Palazzo Zuccari. 1768 appointed him Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov to the agent of the St. Petersburg Academy in Rome. In this way, arrived cork models of classical architecture monuments of Antonio Chichi and plaster casts to Petersburg. Duke Ernst II of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg appointed him in 1772 to his art agent in Rome, and advanced with his help, the collections at Schloss peace in Gotha. 1778 became Reiffenstein Friedrich Melchior Grimm mediation of art buyer for the Empress Catherine II, with whom he corresponded until 1793 also indirectly regularly. The correspondence shows clearly how the structure of the major art and manuscript collections of Catherine vonstattenging.

As Cicerone he was temporary companion Goethe on his Italian Journey 1786-1788 and Johann Gottfried Herder 1788-1790.

From 1782 until his death he was in a close relationship with the painter Angelika Kauffmann.

Reiffenstein was since 1790 an honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin (Department of Fine Arts).