Robert von Schneider

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Portrait and signature of Schneider

Robert (von) Schneider (born November 17, 1854 in Vienna ; † October 24, 1909 there) was an Austrian classical archaeologist , professor and director of the Antikensammlung in Vienna and from 1907 to 1909 second director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute .

Robert von Schneider was born as the son of the Imperial and Royal Ministerial Councilor , medical officer and chemist Franz Schneider . Under the influence of his father, Schneider initially began studying medicine . After several semesters he switched to Classical Studies at the University of Vienna in 1874 , where Alexander Conze became his teacher. In 1880 he received his doctorate with the work The Birth of Athena under Otto Benndorf . He was then initially Kustosadjunkt , three years later curator and 1899 director of the antiquities collection of 1891 opened Art History Court Museum in Vienna. In 1882 he was involved in bringing the Heroon from Trysa from Gjölbaschi to Vienna, although he was never able to establish a warm personal connection to the reliefs of the building. Since the mid-1890s Schneider was confronted with ever greater problems due to the increasing number of antiquities. The Austrian excavations in Ephesus began in 1895 and the first pieces arrived in Vienna as early as 1896 as a gift from the Sultan to Franz Joseph I. In a short time more and more pieces followed, including a large number of sculptures, but also relief blocks of the " Parthian Monument " weighing tons . The art museum could not accept such a large number of new pieces. As an emergency solution, Schneider therefore had an exhibition of finds from Ephesus set up in the Theseus Temple in the Vienna Volksgarten in 1901 and, since 1905, in the Lower Belvedere . He also put the pieces together in two small catalogs. At Benndorf's insistence, Schneider completed his habilitation in 1894 and became an associate professor the following year, and in 1898 a full professor. He mostly held his lectures in museums. In 1898 he became vice director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, which had only been founded a little before, and after Benndorf's death in 1907 he became director.

As curator and director of the Vienna Collection of Antiquities, Schneider succeeded in presenting it in an appropriate form in the new magnificent museum building, which was not always easy, especially with apparently less magnificent pieces and exhibits of cabaret art. The balance between the scientific development of the archaeological artefacts and their presentation to a broader public was one of Schneider's main concerns. One of his strengths was not the creation of catalogs, but the presentation of outstanding individual items that he knew how to classify in a larger context. His writing, Album of Exquisite Objects from the Antique Collection of the Most High Imperial House, is considered to be Schneider's main work . In doing so, he used a clear and objective but nevertheless well-kept language that is still widely regarded as exemplary today. In his work Die Erzstatue vom Helenenberge (1893), Schneider was the first scientist to adequately honor the statue known today as the youth from Magdalensberg . His scientific and literary work is not very extensive because of the intensive preoccupation with the finds from Asia Minor , the museum activity, various additional obligations as professor and OAI functionary and the early death. The preoccupation with the Roman legacies in Austria , which Schneider had already been fascinated by from his earliest youth, had to be neglected, although it was part of the Viennese archaeological school and also part of Schneider himself. He died at the age of only 54. In his memoirs, Ludwig Curtius described him as a small, gracefully built man with an aristocratically well-groomed appearance, as a self-contained personality full of amiable and helpful kindness for others and entirely at the service of the beautiful that he found in antiquity. Schneider was also well educated and devoted to the "fine arts".

Robert von Schneider had been a full member of the German Archaeological Institute since 1889 . In 1908 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . He was buried in the Weidlinger Friedhof near Vienna.

Fonts

  • The birth of Athena , Vienna 1880
  • The ore statue from Helenenberge , Vienna 1893
  • Album of selected items from the antique collection of the Most High Imperial House , Vienna 1895

literature

supporting documents

  1. ^ Ludwig Curtius: German and ancient world. Memories of life , Stuttgart 1950, p. 291
  2. ^ Members of the previous academies. Robert Ritter von Schneider. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on June 13, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Weidling parish cemetery book. (PDF) Weidling Parish, December 25, 2018, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Schneider, Robert von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schneider, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian classical archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1909
Place of death Vienna