Abstract
Jan Tomáš Kleinhardt (1742 Prague – 1794 Prague) was trained in the craft of painting by his father, the miniature painter Vilém Theodor Kleinhardt (1695 Dresden – 1773 Prague), subsequently extending his expertise to include architecture and perspective, which he studied under Sebastian Wetzel, a pupil of Giuseppe Galli Bibiena (1696 Parma – 1757 Berlin), as well as with the famous Jan Ferdinand Schor (1686 Innsbruck – 1767 Prague). However, this auspicious beginning did not guarantee him a brilliant artistic career, especially during the period of fundamental social and cultural changes in the latter half of the 18th century, throughout which he had to forge his own professional path. Much like Jan Quirin Jahn (1739 Prague – 1802 Prague), he discovered it primarily in technical and design drawing, in book illustration and small-scale graphics, and in collaboration with leading thinkers of Czech Enlightenment culture, at a time when the (Royal) Society of Sciences was established here. In addition to this activity, he established himself as a popular drawing teacher in higher social circles and as the author of a methodological handbook on the correct depiction of landscapes (1783), which followed on from Jahn’s work on human proportions published two years earlier (1781). The hitherto practically uncharted fate of this draughtsman, who was recognized in his time, is the subject of this study, which is primarily based on correspondence addressed by Kleinhardt to his long-time patron, Count František Josef Šternberk- Manderscheid (1763 Prague – 1830 Prague). This study brings to light this artist’s interesting social connections, as well as his professional and personal life, and indicates the options open for pursuing an artistic career at a time full of change and shifting structures.