Education
Per Krafft studied in Uppsala, where he in 1736 became interested in the arts
Per Krafft studied in Uppsala, where he in 1736 became interested in the arts
He was the father of the artists Per Krafft the Younger and Wilhelmina Krafft. From 1739 he was for several years a student of portrait painter Johan Henrik Scheffel in Stockholm. In 1745 Krafft went to Copenhagen, where he came under Carl Gustaf Pilo"s influence, as seen in the 1748 autographed portraits of Anna Bohr and a Mission Leijonhufvud as a shepherdess.
In 1749, Per Krafft went to Skåne and painted Governor Wilhelm Lindenstedts portrait in baroque style.
Krafft had a patron in Denmark then Finance Minister Otto Thott, to whom he copied several hundred family portraits at various Danish castle, which was collected in Gavnø. In 1752 Krafft painted the Count and Countess Thotts and their daughter"s portrait, later kept on in Gavnø and Frederiksborg Castle.
In 1755 he traveled to Paris, where he became a student of Chardin. He later became a student of Alexander Roslin, a professor at Bayreuth and court painter to Stanisław August Poniatowski of Poland.
Krafft painted in Paris included Count Nils Nilsson Bonde and some genre portraits, for example a Young Girl who Plays Lira (1758).
In such images, he followed Jean-Baptiste Greuze"s style, which was in vogue at the time. In 1762 Krafft was appointed as professor at the Margrave of Bayreuth"s Academy of Artist Ellrodt. Margrave Frederick"s death dissolved the academy and the artists dispersed.
Krafft then went to Italy, where he visited Bologna and Florence.
After a new subsistence in Bayreuth, where Krafft again portrayed the Duchess of Wurttemberg, he went to Dresden, where he portrayed the minister, Baron von Fritsch. Foreign the Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, Krafft was called to Warsaw, where he painted in 1767-1768 a pictor regius with a variety of portraits for the Polish court.
In 1768 Krafft returned to Stockholm after 21 years abroad. Pastel were now out of style, and oil paintings again in vogue.
Before the portrait orders increased, Krafft undertook other assignments.
In 1770, he painted an altarpiece for Muskö chapel. In competition with Lorens Pasch the Younger who painted the court and nobility, Krafft mostly painted the local bourgeois and scholars. He did portraits of Carl Christoffer Gjörwell Senior, Niclas Sahlgren, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sven Lagerbring, Carl Michael Bellman, Carl Linnaeus, Jonas Alströmer and peasantry President Anders Mattsson.
At Uppsala University Krafft performed a couple of chancellor portraits, including King Adolf Frederick and King Gustavus III as Crown Prince.
Later, he received more orders of King Gustaf III and his queen, and received the title of Professor in 1773 and was elected to the painting academy. At the Academy Krafft painted his self-portrait around 1775.
Skåne castle hosts several portraits done by Krafft. He was the father of the painters Per Krafft the Younger and Wilhelmina Krafft.