Dietrich Von Bothmer
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Dietrich Felix von Bothmer (pronounced ''BOAT-mare''; October 26, 1918 – October 12, 2009) was a German-born American art historian, who spent six decades as a curator at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, where he developed into the world's leading specialist in the field of ancient Greek vases.


Early life and education

Bothmer was born in
Eisenach Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
on October 26, 1918. An ardent opponent of the Nazi dictatorship, he attended
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
's Friedrich Wilhelms University and then
Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street, Oxford, Broad Street and Parks Road ...
in 1938 on the final
Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...
awarded in Germany. There he worked with Sir John Beazley on his books ''Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters'' and ''Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters,'' working collaboratively to group works by identifying the individual craftsmen and workshops that had created each of hundreds of Greek vases. He graduated in 1939 with a major in classical archaeology.Grimes, William
"Dietrich von Bothmer, Curator and Art Historian, Dies at 90"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', October 15, 2009. Accessed October 26, 2009.
A tour of museums in the United States in 1939 left Bothmer stuck there with the start of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Due to his strong anti-Nazi sentiments, he refused to return to Germany, and narrowly escaped being sent back to Germany against his will. He earned his doctorate at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
in 1944. Though not yet a citizen, in 1943 he volunteered for the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
. After 90 days in the U.S. Army, he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in March, 1944. He served in the Pacific theater of operations, earning a
Bronze Star Medal The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a Awards and decorations of the United States Armed Forces, United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious a ...
and
Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the president to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, ...
for a conspicuous act of bravery on August 11, 1944, while serving in the South Pacific, where, despite being wounded himself in the thigh, foot, and arm, he recovered a wounded comrade and carried him back three miles through enemy lines.


Career

Following the completion of his military service, Bothmer was hired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1946, and was named as a curator in 1959. By 1973, he was department chairman and he was named in 1990 as distinguished research curator. In 1972, together with the Director,
Thomas Hoving Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving (January 15, 1931 – December 10, 2009) was an American museum executive and consultant and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early life He was born in New York City to Walter Hoving, the head of Tiff ...
, Bothmer argued in favor of the purchase of the Euphronios Krater, a vase used to mix wine with water that dated from the sixth century BCE. They convinced the museum's board to purchase the artifact for $1 million, which the museum funded through the sale of its coin collection. The Government of Italy demanded the object's return, citing claims that the vase had been taken illegally from an ancient Etruscan site near
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
. The krater was one of 20 pieces that the museum sent back to Italy in 2008 in exchange for multi-year loans of ancient artifacts that were put on display at the Met, as part of an agreement reached in 2006. Bothmer's 1977 exhibit "Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria" covered twenty centuries of Thracian culture, with more than 500 art works dating back to the
Copper Age The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in dif ...
. The 1979 show "Greek Art of the Aegean Islands" included 191 pieces, of which 46 came from the Met and a similar number from the
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
. The remainder came from several different museums in Greece, including the largest known Cycladic sculpture, dating to 2700 to 2300 BCE, on loan from the
National Archaeological Museum, Athens The National Archaeological Museum () in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and ...
. A 1985 exhibition based on his research, "The Amasis Painter and his World: Vase Painting in Sixth Century B.C. Athens," included 65 works of a single artist who created his pottery 2,500 years before, the first to document the history of the work of a single craftsman from that ancient period as a one-man show. Bothmer's numerous published works in the field include the 1957 ''Amazons in Greek Art'', ''Ancient Art From New York Private Collections'' and ''An Inquiry Into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art'' (with Joseph V. Noble), both published in 1961, ''Greek Vase Painting: an Introduction'' in 1972, his 1985 book ''The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens,'' his 1991 book '' Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection'', and in 1992, ''Euphronios, peintre: Actes de la journee d'etude organisee par l'Ecole du Louvre et le Departement des antiquites grecques, etrusques de l'Ecole du Louvre (French Edition)''. He also contributed in 1983 to ''Wealth of the Ancient World (Hunt Art Collections)'', ''Development of the Attic Black-Figure'', Revised Edition (Sather Classical Lectures) in 1986, and a wide variety of other publications. Bothmer took a faculty position in 1965 at the Institute of Fine Arts, the nation's top-ranked graduate program in art history, according to the National Research Council's 1994 study. He was the recipient of numerous awards and citations, including a Chevalier de la
Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
. He was a member of the
Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
(one of only two Americans to have this honor), an honorary fellow of Wadham College, and the recipient of several honorary doctorates. Complementing his career as a curator and an academic, he served on the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research.


Artifact origin controversy

Law enforcement and some archaeologists now believe that several of von Bothmer's many acquisitions of pottery fragments had illicit origins. Pieces of an Attic kylix were acquired over a 16-year period from a series of buyers, with some fragments acquired from Bothmer that completed the piece and allowed it to be fully reassembled. Prosecutors cite the improbability of being able to collect so many shards from the same artifact from disparate sources, and the fact that von Bothmer personally knew the seller of each shard of pottery that was later combined to restore the Kylix.


Death

A resident of both the
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
borough of
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and
Oyster Bay, New York The Town of Oyster Bay is the easternmost of the three Administrative divisions of New York#Town, towns that make up Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, New York (state), New York, United States. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is ...
, Dietrich von Bothmer died at age 90 on October 19, 2009, in Manhattan. He was survived by his wife, Joyce de La Bégassière (née Blaffer), as well as by a son, Bernard von Bothmer of San Francisco, a daughter, Maria Villalba of New York City, three stepdaughters, five grandchildren, and five step-grandchildren. His brother was the renowned Egyptologist Bernard v. Bothmer, who died in 1993.Bernard v. Bothmer's obituary at ''The New York Times''
/ref>


References


External links


Greek vase painting
a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF) by Dietrich von Bothmer {{DEFAULTSORT:Bothmer, Dietrich Von 1918 births 2009 deaths People from Eisenach Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford United States Army personnel of World War II German art historians German Rhodes Scholars Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Members of the Académie Française People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York University faculty People from Manhattan People from Oyster Bay (town), New York United States Army soldiers German male non-fiction writers Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States