author
Ernst Wilhelm Bredt
1869–1938
A German art historian and curator, he wrote about painters, manuscripts, and the moral debates around art in the early 20th century. His books move between close visual study and a broader cultural argument, making them lively windows into their time.
1 Audiobook
Belgiens Volkscharakter, Belgiens Kunst
by Ernst Wilhelm Bredt
About the author
Born in Leipzig on May 4, 1869, Ernst Wilhelm Bredt was a German art historian. He came from a publishing family, and art was close at hand: his older brother Ferdinand Max Bredt became a well-known painter.
Bredt is remembered for writing on subjects such as Rembrandt, German painting, and manuscript illumination. Records of his works show a wide range, from Der handschriftenschmuck Augsburgs im xv. jahrhundert to later books like Deutsche Lande, Deutsche Maler and Sittliche oder unsittliche Kunst!, which suggests a career interested both in careful art-historical scholarship and in larger public questions about art.
Sources also describe him as a curator as well as an art historian. He died on December 2, 1938, in Percha near Starnberg.