Ernst August Hagen

Ernst August Hagen (12 April 1797 - 15 February 1880) was a Prussian writer on art and novelist. He taught at Königsberg University and was the first Prussian scholar to hold a teaching chair in Art history and Aesthetics.

Family provenance and connections Ernst August Hagen was born in Königsberg, at that time the administrative capital of East Prussia (and for almost a decade after 1806 when the king fled from Berlin, the home of the Prussian Court). His father, Karl Gottfried Hagen (1749-1829) was a distinguished chemist and the court apothecary.

In 1807/08, when he was 11, Ernst August and his brothers were taught by their father in the court apothecary, alongside the royal princes Friedrich Wilhelm and Wilhelm.

Life Hagen passed his Abitur (school final exams) at the Altstadt Gymnasium which opened the way to his study of natural sciences and medicine in 1816 at the city's "Albertina University".

Family matters Ernst August Hagen married Emilie Cäcilie "Molly" Oestreich (1805-1876) at Braunsberg in 1825. Her father, Johann Oestreich, was a merchant from one of the region's leading families. Five of the six recorded children from the marriage, born between 1826 and 1835, survived beyond infancy. Both the sons pursued military careers. Ernst Heinrich Hagen (1831–1905) became a Lieutenant general and adjutant to Prince Albert of Prussia. He was himself raised to the nobility (thereby becoming identified in subsequent sources as Ernst Heinrich von Hagen) in 1871 and between 1876 and 1882 served as commander of the Number 5 Dragoon Regiment. The elder son, Hans Hagen (1829-1905), became a Lieutenant colonel and director of the Kassel War Academy.

Ernst August Hagen remained engaged in Königsberg's cultural life almost till the end. He died in Königsberg on 15 February 1880.