The early correspondence of the painter, art historian and museum curator Johann David Passavant from Switzerland, Paris and Italy (1807-1824). An annotated edition.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Bénédicte Savoy
• Subject Area: Art History ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; History of Science
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258597425

The annotated edition of Johann David Passavant's (1787-1861) exchange of letters from Switzerland, Paris and Rome is a project currently running, supported by a funding requested in 2014 for 36 months, and which has been alotted for 24 months. This is to request a prolongation of the funding to conclude successfully the works on the edition. Passavant was one of the most significant early art historians and experts of the 19th century. His significance for the development of the discipline of art history and its methodology has already become an integral part of books of reference on the history of science of art history in Europe. His long-term stays in Paris and Rome, where he lived from 1809 until 1824, and his lifetime travelling, beginning in 1807 in Switzerland and leading him to Lyon, Strassburg, Florence in the following years, formed the young merchant in a most decisive way: He became an artist, a progressive art historian, a cultural affairs networker, an art agent and finally the curator of the Städel institute in his hometown Frankfurt. In 274 letters from Paris and Rome (University Library Frankfurt/Main), which have not been published yet, he gives evidence of the vibrant art life in Europe's complementary capitals of culture during the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras. As a typical representative of his generation, he moreover describes esthetic emotions, artistic aspirations, epistemic desires, and economic coherences that are of tremendous importance for our understanding of the arts in Europe around 1800. The 277 matching letters of artists, colleagues, relatives, scholars and policy-makers complete this caleidoscope of ideas, they reveal origins and impacts of Passavant's formation. Right there, the institution of the museum becomes tangible as a place generating a specific methodic approach to art history. As Jacques-Louis David's student in Paris, Passavant furthermore reports on the forms and trends of artists' education in the early nineteenth century. Light is shed on the real and on the symbolic spaces for contemporary art production and its conditions. Finally, Passavant's letters provide valuable information on the geography of the European art market of the nineteenth century. The edition of this particularly rich exchange of letters aims at contributing to the history of art as a transnational phenomenon.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants