Dietrich von Bothmer

Dietrich Felix von Bothmer ( born October 26, 1918 in Eisenach, † October 13, 2009 in New York ) was a German -American classical archaeologist.

Family

He was the son of the royal Prussian Colonel Wilhelm von Bothmer (1869-1922) and Marie Baroness von Stein and Egloff ( 1887-1960 ). Bothmer married on May 28, 1966 in New York divorced his first wife, Joyce Blaffer ( born August 27, 1926 in Houston, Texas, USA ), the daughter of the industrialist Robert Lee Blaffer and Sarah Jane Campbell. The couple has two children. His older brother was the Egyptologist Bernard V. Bothmer.

Life and career

Bothmer began his studies at the Friedrich -Wilhelms -Universität zu Berlin, before he went in 1938-39 with a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University (England). There he met John D. Beazley, who introduced him to the Greek vases.

He then did not go back to Germany, but in the U.S., where he completed his doctorate at the University of Berkeley in 1944. 1944/45, he served in the Pacific War. In 1946 he began his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he was to spend the rest of his life from 1973 to 1990 as head of the Greek and Roman Department. In addition, he was from 1965 to 2006 professor at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York.

His scientific specialty was Greek art and especially vase painting. He amassed one of the most important collections of fragments of Greek vases, which he bequeathed to the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University. For discussion attended his contacts with the trade in illegally acquired antiquities and in particular the acquisition in 1972 of a large calyx-krater of the late Archaic vase painter Euphronios for the Metropolitan Museum, which was returned to Italy in 2008.

In addition to numerous other honors von Bothmer was corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and a regular member of the German Archaeological Institute.

Writings (selection )

  • Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, an Exhibition from the Collection of Walter Cummings Baker. New York 1950.
  • Amazons in Greek Art Oxford, 1957 ( = dissertation University of California, Berkeley 1944).
  • Ancient art from New York private collections. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 17, 1959 - February 28, 1960 New York 1961..
  • With Joseph V. Noble: An Inquiry into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 1961.
  • Corpus vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America Vol 12 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Fasc. 3: Attic Black- Figured amphorae. In 1963.
  • Greek and Roman art. Guide to the collections. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 1964. 2nd edition 1975.
  • The Euphronioskrater in New York. In: Archaeological Indicators 1976, p 485-512.
  • Greek vase - painting. An Introduction. Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 1972. 2nd edition 1987.
  • Mary B. Moore: Corpus vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America. Vol 16 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fasc. 4: Attic black- figured neck- amphorae. In 1976.
  • A Greek and Roman Treasury. Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 42.1. New York 1984.
  • The Amasis Painter and His World. Vase - Painting in Sixth- century B.C. Athens. Malibu 1985.
  • Glories of the Past. Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection. New York 1990.
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