WULFF, OSKAR. - Archaeologist, b. 6 June 1864 in St. Petersburg to a family of Protestant German origin, d. in Berlin on 23 January 1946.
From 1876 to 1882 he attended the Reval Lyceum and pursued his studies in classical philology, archaeology, and art history at the Universities of Dorpat (1882–86), Berlin (1888–89), and Leipzig (1892–94). In 1895 he entered the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople (1895–98), where he began his in-depth studies of Byzantine art under Uspenski, also undertaking journeys to Asia Minor, Mount Athos, and Greece. In 1895 he became an inspector at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum; in 1902 he qualified as a lecturer at the University of Berlin, where he prepared his catalogue of the Paleo-Christian, Byzantine, and medieval Italian collections (1909 and 1911). He then served as secretary at the German Institute in Florence. He returned to Berlin in 1905 as a professor at the University (1917); he was later promoted to director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum until 1926, the year he retired, though remaining a professor at the University. O. W. was the first in Germany to dedicate himself to the study of Byzantine art, and with his handbook (I. Die altchristliche Kunst, 1913–14 and II. Die byzantinische Kunst, 1915) he advanced the study of this discipline. His principal publications included: Cherubim, Throne und Seraphim (diss., Altenburg 1894); Spätantike und koptische Stoffe (in collaboration with W. F. Volbach, Berlin 1926); Denkmäler der Ikonenmalerei in kunstgeschichtlicher Folge (Dresden 1925); Giovanni d'Antonio di Banco (in Jahrb. der kgl. preuss. K.-Samml., 1913); Donatello (Leipzig 1922); Die neurusische Kunst (Augsburg 1932); Grundlinien und kritische Erörterungen zur Primepienlehre der bildenden Kunst (Stuttgart 1917); Die Kunst des Kindes (ibid. 1927).