German diplomat and art collector. He was the son of civil servant Johann Christian Kestner and his wife Charlotte Buff. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met and fell in love with Charlotte while she was engaged to Johann. She refused and Goethe was suffering for the rest of his life, for which he wrote "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers" (The Sorrows of Young Werther). From 1796 to 1799 he studied law at the University of Göttingen and was immediately afterwards called up as a Vernehmungsrichter (interrogation judge) at the court in Hanover. In 1803 he was appointed 'secret office-secretary in the civil service'. As such, he made his living from 1818 to 1849, among other things, as an official envoy and Minister-resident in Rome and Naples. Also he was a diplomat of Hanover to the Holy See in Rome. As an art lover, he gathered small objects from Egyptian as well as Greco-Roman art. He, Theodor Panofka and Otto Magnus von Stackelberg founded the "Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica" in 1829, later to become the German Archaeological Institute, and was in 1838 entrusted with its direction as its secretary-general. After his retirement from the civil service, he lived in Rome until his death.
German diplomat and art collector. He was the son of civil servant Johann Christian Kestner and his wife Charlotte Buff. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met and fell in love with Charlotte while she was engaged to Johann. She refused and Goethe was suffering for the rest of his life, for which he wrote "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers" (The Sorrows of Young Werther). From 1796 to 1799 he studied law at the University of Göttingen and was immediately afterwards called up as a Vernehmungsrichter (interrogation judge) at the court in Hanover. In 1803 he was appointed 'secret office-secretary in the civil service'. As such, he made his living from 1818 to 1849, among other things, as an official envoy and Minister-resident in Rome and Naples. Also he was a diplomat of Hanover to the Holy See in Rome. As an art lover, he gathered small objects from Egyptian as well as Greco-Roman art. He, Theodor Panofka and Otto Magnus von Stackelberg founded the "Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica" in 1829, later to become the German Archaeological Institute, and was in 1838 entrusted with its direction as its secretary-general. After his retirement from the civil service, he lived in Rome until his death.
Gravesite Details
Germany
