Director General of all Prussian museums 1906-1920 and major influence on German art history in the early twentieth century; scholar of Dutch 17th-century painting and Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture. Bode hailed from an illustrious German family. His grandfather, Wilhelm Julius Bode (1779-1854), had been the director of city of Braunschweig, Germany. His father, Wilhelm Bode (1812-1883) was a judge and administrator for the Duke of Braunschweig.

First professor of art theory and art history at University of Berlin (1810); responsible for the collection of antiquities of the King of Prussia from 1798; archaeologist of Greek and Roman architecture. Hirt came from a peasant family. After education by Benedictine monks and the Donauschingen Gymnasium, he studied philosophy in Nancy, France, with the intent of gaining a degree in law. He briefly studied law at Freiburg before switching to the university in Vienna, where between 1779 and 1782 he studied classics.

Key figure in the early development of the discipline of art history ("Berlin School"); author of one of the first surveys of art history; cultural administrator for the Prussian state. He was born in Stettin, Germany, which is present-day Szczecin, Poland. Kugler's father was Johann Georg Emanuel Kugler, a successful merchant and city father (German Counselor). The younger Kugler studied literature, music and the visual arts at the University of Berlin.