Johann Zoffany belongs to the record of art as a figure whose work outlasted the taste that first received it.
The record lists Johann Zoffany as German painter (1733–1810).
Johann Zoffany was born at Frankfurt in 1733. His recorded nationality is Germany.
Academies set the rules in this period - what counted as a serious subject, and who was allowed to train.
He worked as painter, printmaker and engraver.
His recorded movement is neoclassicism.
Among his best-known works are Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match, The Death of Captain James Cook and The Tribuna of the Uffizi. Art history is a record of what got kept, which is not the same as what was best.
That the work was made in Germany shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Johann Zoffany died in 1810, aged 77. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- Notable work: Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match
- Notable work: The Death of Captain James Cook
- Notable work: The Tribuna of the Uffizi
- Notable work: Last Supper
- Movement: Neoclassicism
