Portret van Carl Friedrich Bahrdt c. 1830

Johann Daniel Laurenz the Younger made this print of Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, though the precise date of its creation remains unknown. It presents a man who was anything but neutral, a figure of deep social and political controversy at the end of the eighteenth century. Bahrdt was a theologian who gained notoriety for his heterodox views and his outspoken criticism of religious and political authority. Laurenz's print would have circulated among a public deeply engaged with the debates surrounding the Enlightenment. The print's visual codes, such as the octagonal frame, suggest an attempt to contain or categorize Bahrdt. Was the institutional setting of art complicit in either celebrating or censoring him? The social conditions that shaped this artwork were ones of intellectual ferment and political tension. A deeper understanding requires consulting historical archives, pamphlets, and the writings of Bahrdt himself, to uncover the complex meaning of this image.