Gustav Friedrich Waagen

Gustav Friedrich Waagen studied at University of Wrocław. The recorded working language is German. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin, London and Saint Petersburg. Employment is recorded with Frederick William University Berlin. Works named in the authority record are The Treasures of Art in Great Britain and Die Gemäldesammlung in der kaiserlichen Ermitage zu St.Petersburg. Distinctions recorded are Gold medal of the Royal proof of gratitude.

Waagen was born in Hamburg, the son of a painter and a nephew and lover of the poet Ludwig Tieck. Having passed through the college of Hirschberg, Silesia (modern Jelenia Góra), he volunteered for service in the Napoleonic campaign of 1813–14, and on his return attended the lectures at Breslau University. He devoted himself to the study of art, which he pursued in the great European galleries, first in Germany, then in the Netherlands and Italy. A pamphlet on the brothers van Eyck led in 1832 to his appointment to the directorship of the newly founded Berlin Museum (now vastly expanded as the Berlin State Museums), although his main interest was the paintings in what is now the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The result of a journey to London and Paris was an important publication in three volumes, Kunstwerke und Künstler in England und Paris (Berlin, 1837–39), which became the basis for his more important The Treasures of Art in Great Britain, translated by Elizabeth Eastlake, (4 vols, London, 1854 and 1857). This remains a significant source for the provenance of paintings then in English collections. Although Waagen has been criticised for his "amateurish and erratic expertise" by modern standards, his work was regarded as highly authoritative for the following half-century. In 1844, he was appointed professor of art history at Berlin University, and in 1861 he was called to Saint Petersburg as adviser in the arranging and naming of the pictures in the imperial collection. On his return, he published a book on the Hermitage collection (Munich, 1864). Among his other publications are some essays on Peter Paul Rubens, Andrea Mantegna and Luca Signorelli; Kunstwerke und Künstler in Deutschland; and Die vornehmsten Kunstdenkmäler in Wien. In 1849 Waagen became a corresponding member, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. In 1861, he was elected an honorary associate of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.

He was employed by Frederick William University Berlin. He belonged to Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. He worked at Berlin, London and Saint Petersburg.