Jakob Rosenberg

Jakob Rosenberg (September 5, 1893 – April 7, 1980) was a German-American art historian and Rembrandt scholar.

Rosenberg was born in Berlin into a family of art dealers, including four brothers, among them Saemy Rosenberg (1893–1971). During the years 1912 to 1914 he first did an internship in the art trade in Munich. After serving in a cavalry unit in World War I he was wounded, captured by the British and sent to Scoltand. In 1915 and was sent to Switzerland by prisoner exchange. After the war he studied art history in Bern and Zurich, then in Frankfurt and Munich, where he received his doctorate under Heinrich Wölfflin. He then worked for Max J. Friedlander in the Berlin print cabinet Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, where he also had contact with Wilhelm von Bode. In 1935 he became a curator there but was dismissed the same year for racial reasons. After a visit to Harvard University in 1936, Jakob Rosenberg emigrated to the United States in 1937, where he was admitted to Harvard through Adolph Goldschmidt and his friend Paul Sachs. He was first a research fellow and lecturer, then in 1940 associate professor and in 1947 full professor. His 1948 overview work on Rembrandt was reprinted in 1964 and 1968, holding its own as a standard work during the early years of the Rembrandt Research Project. He was also director of the Graphic Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1939.

In 1954 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jakob Rosenberg married Elisabeth Husserl (1882–1981), daughter of Edmund Husserl, in 1922. By 1937 they had two children–Wolfgang and Ruth.

Rosenberg died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980.

Publications[]

• Die Handzeichnungen von Martin Schongauer. München 1923 (Dissertation).
• Jacob van Ruisdael, Berlin 1928.
• with : Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Kupfertichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Niederländischen Meister, Frankfurt a. M. 1930.
• with Max J. Friedländer: Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach. Berlin 1932; 2. edition, Basel 1979.
• Rembrandt. Life and Work, Cambridge, Mass. 1948.
• Great Draughtsmen from Pisanello to Picasso. Cambridge, Mass. 1959. Revised edition 1974.
• Die Zeichnungen Lucas Cranachs d. Ä. Berlin, 1960.
• with Seymour Slive. Dutch Art and Architecture, 1600 to 1800. Baltimore, 1966.
• On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present (Bollingen series 35). Princeton, 1969.

Web links[]

• w:de:Jakob Rosenberg
• Obituary in The Crimson
• Jakob Rosenberg in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• "Memorial Minute," Harvard University, 1983.

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