Ernst August Hagen

Ernst August Hagen
Ernst August Hagen from an engraving by his sister, Florentine Neumann (1800-1838)
Born	12 April 1797 Königsberg, East Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	15 February 1880 Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany
Alma mater	"Albertina University", Königsberg
Occupation	University Professor (Art history & Aesthetics) Novelist/Poet
Spouse(s)	Emilie Cäcilie Oestreich (1805-1876)
Children	Gertrud Hagen (1826-1826) Auguste Anna Margarethe Hagen (1827-1914) Carl Gottfried Johann "Hans" Hagen (1829–1910) Ernst Heinrich Hagen (1831–1905) Clara Elisabeth Hagen (1833-1856) Elise Friederike Hagen (1835-1920)
Parent(s)	Karl Gottfried Hagen (1749-1829) Johanna Maria Rabe (1764-1829)

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 in Art history and Aesthetics.

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.

The family was intellectually distinguished and well connected socially. Ernst August's older brother, Carl Heinrich Hagen (1785-1856) was a professor of law and economics and a senior government official who had become became an early and prominent advocate of free trade after studying the work of Adam Smith. A cousin, Gotthilf Hagen (1797-1884), was notable as a hydraulic engineer. His younger sister, Florentine Hagen (1800-1838), later married the physicist-mathematician Franz Ernst Neumann (1798-1895); and as the result of the marriage of his elder sister, Johanna Hagen (1794-1885), he was also a brother-in-law to the astronomer-physicist Friedrich Bessel (1784-1846).

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.