Carl Haller von Hallerstein

Johann Carl Christoph Wilhelm Joachim Haller von Hallerstein (10 June 1774, Burg Hilpoltstein, Hiltpoltstein, Principality of Bayreuth – 5 November 1817, Ampelakia, Thessaly, Ottoman Greece) was a German architect, archaeologist and art historian.[1]

He is best known for his role in the 1811–1812 excavations at the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina and the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, where he worked alongside Charles Robert Cockerell, John Foster Jr. and others. The group removed the Aphaia pedimental sculptures and the Bassae frieze, which were clandestinely exported and later sold. Modern and contemporary accounts describe the removals as acts of antiquities smuggling and plunder.[2][3][4] The Aphaia marbles were acquired by Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria for the Glyptothek in Munich, and in 1815 the British Museum purchased the Bassae frieze at a London auction from Haller von Hallerstein and his associates.[5][6]

Biography

He was born into a famous Nuremberg noble patrician family, as son of Freiherr (Baron) Karl Joachim Haller von Hallerstein and Sophie Amalie von Imhof. Hallerstein studied architecture at the Carlsakademie in Stuttgart and then at the Berliner Bauakademie under David Gilly.[1] He was then engaged in 1806 as a royal building inspector in Nuremberg.

He visited Rome in 1808 to study its early Christian architecture. In June 1810 he accompanied Jakob Linkh (1786–1841), Peter Oluf Brøndsted (1780-1842), Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (1787–1837) and Georg Koës (1782-1811) to Athens, via Naples, Corfu and Corinth. In 1811 in Athens he met the English architects Charles Robert Cockerell and John Foster (1786–1846), with whom he studied Athens's ancient buildings.

In 1811 he, Linkh and von Stackelberg discovered the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, a part of whose sculptures are in the Munich Glyptothek as a result. In the same year, von Hallerstein (with Cockerell, Gropius, Linckh, Stackelberg, Bröndsted and Foster) excavated the ruins of the temple of Apollo in Bassae, whose relief frieze was taken to the British Museum by Cockerell. Sadly Haller's drawings were lost at sea.[7] Later he led yet more excavations on Ithaka and in the ruins of the theatre on Milos.

Haller died in Thessaly in 1817 after catching a fever. He was temporarily buried there but then later moved to Athens.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c Haller von Hallerstein, Carl Freiherr Archived 2014-03-18 at the Wayback Machine, Dictionary of Art Historians, retrieved June 2010
  2. ^ "The temple of Apollo Epikourios". Archaeology Wiki. 6 August 2012. Artists, scientists, antiquities smugglers… Cockerell, Foster and others…
  3. ^ "Missing Pieces". Kenyon College News. 2 April 2025. …they smuggled those pediments out of the country…
  4. ^ Leonard, John (8 May 2020). "Plunderer's Diary: Charles Cockerell Raids Aegina's Temple". Greece Is.
  5. ^ "Rethinking the Sanctuary of Aphaia". Oxford Academic. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  6. ^ "Bassae Sculptures". British Museum Collection. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  7. ^ William Bell Dinsmoor, "The Temple of Apollo at Bassae" Metropolitan Museum Studies 4.2 (March 1933:205-227) p 205

Sources

  • Klaus Frässle: Carl Haller von Hallerstein (1774-1817). Freiburg i.Br.: Univ., Philosoph. Fak., Dissertation 1971.
  • Hansgeorg Bankel: Und die Erde gebar ein Lächeln: der erste deutsche Archäologe in Griechenland Carl Haller von Hallerstein 1774 - 1817. München: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1983. ISBN 3-7991-6181-3.
  • Hansgeorg Bankel: Carl Haller von Hallerstein in Griechenland 1810 - 1817: Architekt, Zeichner, Bauforscher (anlässl. d. Ausstellung Carl Haller von Hallerstein in Griechenland 1810 - 1817: München, Palais Preysing, 14. Februar - 15. März 1986; Nürnberg, Albrecht-Dürerhaus u. Fembohaus, 22. März - 11. Mai 1986; Berlin-Charlottenburg, Antikenmuseum SMPK, 14. Juni - 31. August 1986). Im Auftr. d. Carl-Haller-von-Hallerstein-Ges. hrsg. von Hansgeorg Bankel. Berlin: Reimer, 1986. ISBN 3-496-00840-7
  • R. Lullies, W. Schiering (eds.): Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassischen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Mainz: von Zabern, 1988: 16–17. ISBN 3-8053-0971-6
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