Helga von Heintze

Helga Freifrau von Heintze , née Helga Hoinkes , (born August 9, 1919 in Bielitz ; † November 15, 1996 in Rome ) was an Austro-German classical archaeologist whose research area was particularly ancient portraits .

Life

Helga von Heintze was born in the Austrian part of Silesia as the daughter of the cloth manufacturer, historian and publicist Carl Hoinkes . She has been studying Classical Studies at the University of Vienna since 1940 ; the most important academic teacher here was Camillo Praschniker . In 1944 she married the publishing bookseller Wolf Freiherr von Heintze in Vienna, who fell in Bavaria in the last days of the Second World War . While fleeing, Helga von Heintze ended up in northern Germany. The manuscript of her dissertation , which Praschniker had already accepted in Vienna, was lost. Far worse was the loss of her eight-month-old son Wolf-Andreas. She began her studies again at the University of Hamburg . The most important teachers there were Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen , Gerhard Kleiner , Eugen von Mercklin and Bruno Snell . She received her doctorate from Kleiner in 1949 with her thesis Imago clipeata . During this time she was also involved in the inventory of the works of art in the Berlin museums stored in the Kunstgutlager Schloss Celle . As a student awarded by the University of Hamburg, Heintze was also able to travel to the Mediterranean for the first time during a two-month cruise . In 1951 she was one of the first students to receive a scholarship as part of the German Academic Exchange Service after the war and came to Italy with it. This was followed by another research grant that took her to Rome, where she was to have her center of life from now on.

Initially, Heintze was assistant to the first director of the Rome Department of the German Archaeological Institute , Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg . After his death, she arranged for the handover of his estate. Until 1970 she worked as a scholarship holder or with contracts for work, until she became a research assistant at the Roman department of the German Archaeological Institute. Here she was responsible for editing the Roman communications and other publications of the department. In 1984 she retired, but continued to work scientifically until her death. After a long illness she died in 1996. She was buried in the cemetery at the Cestius pyramid .

Helga von Heintze was a specialist in ancient portraits from the Greek classical period to late antiquity . To this end, she published numerous publications. In addition, as a representative of the “Vienna School” of classical archeology, she also had considerable knowledge in the field of provincial Roman archeology . As a long-time employee of the “Helbig Speier”, the new edition of the guide to the public collections of ancient art in Rome, first published by Wolfgang Helbig in 1882, organized by Hermine Speier , she was also familiar with all of Rome's collections and contributed 585 contributions to the four-volume work the Greek and Roman portraits. She also translated various books from Italian into German and re- edited Anton Hekler's portraits of famous Greeks .

Fonts (selection)

• Juno Ludovisi (= Opus nobile. Book 4). Dorn, Bremen 1957.
• Roman portrait sculpture from seven centuries . Günther, Stuttgart 1961.
• The portrait of Sappho . Kupferberg, Mainz / Berlin 1966.
• The ancient portraits in Schloss Fasanerie near Fulda . von Zabern, Mainz 1968.
• Roman art (= Bels style history . Volume 3). Belser, Stuttgart 1969 = Art of the Roman Empire. Painting, sculpture, architecture . Belser, Stuttgart and Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-7630-1873-5 .
• Editor: Roman portraits (= ways of research. Volume 348). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1974, ISBN 3-534-05686-8 .

literature

• Hans von Steuben : Half a century in Rome. On the death of Helga von Heintze . In: Antike Welt 28, No. 1, 1997, p. 84.
• Paul Zanker : Helga von Heintze, August 9, 1919 - November 15, 1996. Words from the First Director in memory of the deceased during the Winckelmann adunance on December 11, 1996 . In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute. Roman department . Volume 104, 1997, pp. VII-VIII.
• Hans von Steuben (Hrsg.): Antique portraits. In memory of Helga von Heintze . Bibliopolis, Möhnesee 1999, ISBN 3-933925-02-9 (with list of publications, pp. 317–328).

Web links

• Literature by and about Helga von Heintze in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dictionary of Art Historians

Remarks

1. ↑ Your role in uncovering the theft of gold jewelry from the Berlin Collection of Antiquities from the Kunstgutlager 1947/48 is unclear, see Everyone under suspicion . In: Der Spiegel No. 38, 1949; Lothar Pretzell: The Kunstgutlager Schloss Celle 1945 to 1958 . Celle 1959, p. 33; Cay Friemuth: The stolen art. The dramatic race to save cultural treasures after the Second World War (kidnapping, salvage and restitution of European cultural assets 1939–1948) . Westermann, Braunschweig 1989, ISBN 3-07-500060-4 , pp. 137-138.