Gustav Adolf Wilhelm von Ingenheim

He was the son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and his morganatic wife, Julie von Voss, who had been given the title "Countess Ingenheim". She died of consumption two months after he was born. Upon turning twenty-one, he became a Royal Chamberlain. Following the German campaign of 1813, he was awarded the Iron Cross. Three years later, he was named a Privy Councilor, in service to his half-brother, King Friedrich Wilhelm III.

It was at then that he decided to devote his life to his true passion, art, and began acquiring a collection. In pursuit of that goal, he lived in Italy from 1816 to 1818, and again from 1822, purchasing works for the newly established museums in Berlin, as well as for himself. He also hosted a salon that alternated between Rome and Berlin, while cultivating contacts with well known contemporary artists, such as Johann Erdmann Hummel, Aloys Hirt, Christian Daniel Rauch and Karl Friedrich Schinkel. In addition, he supported Moritz Daniel Oppenheim and Franz Ludwig Catel with his own commissions and secured funds for the archaeological research being conducted by Eduard Gerhard.

In 1825, his half-sister, Julie von Brandenburg, and her husband, Frederick Ferdinand, Duke of Anhalt-Köthen, converted to Catholicism. A year later, he followed suit and married Eugenie de Thierry (1808–1881), a distant relative. As a result, the King banned him from Berlin, cutting off the funds that were necessary to continue his collecting.[1] He remained in Rome until 1833.

Some of the works he had already acquired were sold to museums. The remainder were kept at the Villa Ingenheim in Potsdam. In 1883, the collection was transferred to Castle Reisewitz, which had been purchased by his widow. The castle was looted in 1945, and the collection was scattered. Few of the works have been accounted for.[2]

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• Brief biography in the Neues Preussisches Adels-Lexicon @ Google Books