Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (archaeologist)

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For other members of Stackelberg family, see
Stackelberg
.
Otto Magnus von Stackelberg
St Petersburg, Russian Empire
OccupationClassicist, archaeologist,
art historian, writer, artist
NationalityBaltic German (born in present-day Estonia)
Period1825–1837
SubjectArt history and archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome
Literary movementClassicism

Otto Magnus Freiherr

art historian
.

Life

Early life

Fähna (Vääna) manor, Estonia, where von Stackelberg spent his youth

He was born in Reval (

estate at Fähna (Vääna
) to act as Otto's tutor.

Originally destined for the diplomatic corps, he began his studies at the

Salomon Geßner and visited Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. After wintering in Geneva he continued with his brother Karl to Italy, where the initial thoughts he had had at Zurich of devoting his life to the arts flourished. A stay in Dresden to study painting followed in 1804 but the following year he continued his diplomatic studies in Moscow
. By now his mother had realized that her son was not suited for the diplomatic service and from then on Stackelberg dedicated himself to art and increasingly to archaeology.

First trip to Greece

Image from his "Trachten und Gebräuche der Neugriechen"

A second period of study at Göttingen followed, along with (between 1806 and 1808) time at a gallery at Dresden. In autumn 1808, he set out on a second Italian trip, this time accompanied by

Peter Oluf Brondsted and Georg Koës, the German painter Jakob Linckh, and the then Austrian consul in Greece George Christian Gropius
. Bröndsted and Koës persuaded Stackelberg to accompany them on their trip to Greece. They intended to produce an archaeological publication upon their return, for which Stackelberg would produce landscapes.

Another of his engravings

The trip to Greece was long and adventurous, setting out from

frieze they found on it is now in the British Museum) and Aeacus's temple of Zeus Panhellenios (Panhellenic Zeus), again at Aegina
.

Rome and Italy

In autumn 1814, Stackelberg returned from Greece to his family in the Baltic States. He travelled to Italy again in 1816, researching antiquity and the Middle Ages as an art historian and becoming co-founder of the "Instituto Archeologico Germanico" in Rome. Together with

Corneto (now Tarquinia
).

Later life and death

In 1828 Stackelberg left Rome and Italy for the last time. From 1829 to 1833 he lived once again in Germany, meeting there among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and travelling to England, France and the Netherlands. From 1835 he lived in Riga.

Reception

His daughter Natalie von Stackelberg published a biography of him in 1882 on the basis of her father's journals and letters. In his biography of von Stackelberg, Gerhart Rodenwaldt called him the "discoverer of the [ancient] Greek landscape".

See also

Works

Title page of Die Gräber der Hellenen in Bildwerken und Vasengemälden
  • Costumes et usages des peuples de la Grèce moderne / Trachten und Gebräuche der Neugriechen (Costumes and customs of the peoples of modern Greece). Rome 1825.
  • Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien und die daselbst ausgegrabenen Bildwerke. (The Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia, and the Wall-paintings excavated there). Rome 1826.
  • La Grèce. Vues pittoresques et topographiques, dessinus par O. M. baron de Stackelberg. (Greece - Picturesque views and topographic views, drawn by Otto Magnus, baron of Stackelberg). Paris 1830.
  • Die Gräber der Hellenen in Bildwerken und Vasengemälden (The Graves of the Greeks in Wall-paintings and Vase-paintings). Berlin 1837.

Bibliography

  • Gerhart Rodenwaldt, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg. Der Entdecker der griechischen Landschaft 1786–1837, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin-München 1957

References

  1. ^ Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a former title (translated as Baron). In Germany since 1919, it forms part of family names. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.

External links

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