Weimar Princely Free Drawing School

It was financed by the young Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and heavily promoted by Goethe, who also taught there.

The foundation of the school is a clear indication of the rising interest in arts and crafts in court circles in the second half of 18th century.

Its immediate main aim was to instruct local craftsmen in drawing, to sharpen their sense of aesthetics in consumables and in the longer term to increase the quality of production in handcrafts.

In order to disseminate art, taste and a sense of beauty to as wide a public as possible, the lessons and living quarters were open to all classes and both sexes.

To complete its pupils' knowledge and artistic talents by comparison and copying, from 1809 the school also developed its own collection of major paintings, giving exhibitions from 1809, which were generally housed from 1824/25 in the Grossen Jägerhaus.