(b Danzig [now Gdansk, Poland], 4 Oct 1700; d Bethlehem, PA, 18 Jan 1780). American painter of German birth, active also in England. Born into a family of goldsmiths, he received his first training in that craft from his father. When his father became a court goldsmith in Berlin, Haidt attended his first drawing lessons at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in that city. After a 10-year journey around Europe (1714–24), he set up his studio in London, where he joined the Moravian Church. From 1724 to 1738 he worked as a preacher in England and Germany; it was probably c. 1746 that he began to paint for the Church. In 1747 he exhibited First Fruits (version, Bethlehem, PA, Archv Morav. Church), which contained 25 life-size figures of people converted to Christianity by Moravian missionaries.