HOTHO, HEINRICH GusT.A.v, was born at Berlin in 1802, and died in his native city on Christmas day 1873. He made a name for himself in Germany as an historian rather than as a critic of art. Yet he remained second to his contemporary Waagen in experience, grasp of subject matter, and subtlety of eye. Nor had he the good fortune which accompanied Waagen through life to find patrons and friends in all countries of Europe. No one could have foreseen that Hotho would one day be an authority on art. During boyhood he was affected for two years with blindness consequent on an attack of measles. But recovering his sight he studied so hard as to take his degree at Berlin in 1826. A year of travel spent in visiting Paris, London, and the Low Countries determined his vocation. He came home delighted with the treasures which he had seen, worked laboriously for a higher examination, and passed as " docent " in tvsthetics and art history. In 1829 he was made professor at the university of Berlin. In 1833 Waagen accepted him as assistant in the museum of the Prussian capital ; and in 1858, after the death of Scborn, he was promoted to the directorship of the print-room. This was Hotho's last step in life. When Waagen died he had hopes of succeeding him, but these hopes were disappointed, not because in this walk Hotho was unfitted for the duties he was ambitious of performing, but probably because his experience was not considered sufficiently exten- - sive. During a long and busy life, in which his time was divided between literature and official duties, Hotho's ambition had always been to master the history of the schools of Germany and the Netherlands. Accordingly what he published was generally confined to those countries. In 1842-43 he gave to the world his account of German and Flemish painting. From 1853 to 1858 be revised and published anew a part of this work, which he called " the school of Hubert van Eyck, with his German precursors and contemporaries." His attempt later on to write a history of Christian painting overtasked his strength, and was far from finished when the last sickness fell on him. Hotho's name will be honourably remembered as that of an amiable and industrious man, earnest from the first in his effort to throw light on an obscure and recondite subject. His training unfortunately confined him to one section of the field in which art history is comprised, and his comparative ignorance of Italian painting was the cause why he did not climb the last step to which Waagen had been able to ascend.