Gisela Marie Augusta Richter (August 14, 1882 – December 24, 1972), was a classical archaeologist and art historian.

Gisela Richter was born in London, England; the daughter of Jean Paul and Louise (Schwaab) Richter. Both of her parents and her sister, Irma, were historians of Italian Renaissance art. She was educated at Maida Vale School, one of the finest schools for women at the time. She decided to become a classical archaeologist while attending Emmanuel Loewy's lectures at the University of Rome

University of Rome La Sapienza

The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...

 around 1896. In 1901 she attended Girton College at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 and the British School at Athens

British School at Athens

The British School at Athens is one of the 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes in Athens, Greece.-General information:The School was founded in 1886 as the fourth such institution in Greece...

.

She joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York as an assistant in 1906, becoming assistant curator in 1910, associate curator in 1922, and curator of Greek and Roman art in 1925, a position she held until 1948, when she became honorary curator until her death in 1972. As curator she was one of the most influential people in classical art history at the time.

She lectured at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

, and Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

. As author of numerous popular books on classical art, she had an enormous influence on the general public's understanding and appreciation of the subject.

Writing 30 years after Richter's death, Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia

Camille Anna Paglia , is an American author, teacher, and social critic. Paglia, a self-described dissident feminist, has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984...

 paid tribute to her "for her clarity and rigor of mind; her fineness of sensibility and connoisseurship; her attention to detail and her power of observation and deduction; her mastery of form and design."

Books by Gisela Richter

• Greek
  Greece
  Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
  
  , Etruscan
  Etruscan civilization
  Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
  
   and Roman
  Ancient Rome
  Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
  
   Bronzes, Gilliss Press, 1915.
• Catalogue of Engraved Gems of the Classical Style, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1920, published as Catalogue of Engraved Gems: Greek, Etruscan and Roman, 1956.
• The Craft of Athenian Pottery, Yale University Press, 1923.
• Ancient Furniture, Clarendon Press, 1926.
• Handbook of the Classical Collection, revised and enlarged edition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1927.
• The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, Yale University Press, 1929, 4th revised edition, 1970.
• Animals in Greek Sculpture: A Survey, Oxford University Press, 1930.
• Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, Plantin, 1935, reprinted, McGrath, 1973.
• Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 1936.
• Handbook of the Etruscan Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1940.
• Ancient Gems from the Evans and Beatty Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1942.
• (With Irma Richter) Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youths, Oxford University Press, 1942, 3rd edition, Phaidon, 1970.
• Archaic Attic
  Attica
  Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
  
   Gravestones, Harvard University Press, 1944.
• Attic Red-Figured Vases, Yale University Press, 1946, revised edition, 1958.
• Roman Portraits, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1948.
• Archaic Greek Art against Its Historical Background, Oxford University Press, 1949.
• Three Critical Periods in Greek Sculpture, Oxford University Press, 1952.
• Attic Black-Figured Kylikes, Harvard University Press, 1953.
• Handbook of the Greek Collection, Harvard University Press, 1953.
• Catalogue of Greek Sculptures, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University Press, 1954.
• Ancient Italy, University of Michigan Press, 1955.
• Greek Portraits, Latomus, Volume I, 1955, Volume II, 1959, Volume III, 1960, Volume IV, 1962, Volume V, 1964.
• Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Harvard University Press, 1956.
• Greek Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1957.
• A Handbook of Greek Art, Phaidon, 1959, 6th edition, 1969.
• The Archaic Gravestones of Attica, Phaidon, 1961.
• The Portraits of the Greeks, three volumes, Phaidon, 1965, supplement, 1972.
• The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, Phaidon, 1966.
• Korai
  Korai
  The Korai are a Baloch tribe settled in the Balochistan province of Iran, Balochistan Province of Pakistan; Sindh; Punjab provinces of Pakistan; and the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat, Maharastra, Haryana, and Indian Punjab....
  
  : Archaic Greek Maidens, Phaidon, 1968.
• Engraved Gems of the Greeks and the Etruscans, Praeger, Volume I, 1968, Volume II, 1971.
• Perspective in Greek and Roman Art, Phaidon, 1970.

Sources

• My Memoirs: Recollections of an Archaeologist's Life, by Gisela Richter, 1972.
• "Gisela Richter," in Notable American Women, ed. Barbara Sicherman and Carol H. Green, 1980.
• "Scholar of Classical Art and Museum Archaeologist," in Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 1820-1979, ed. Claire R. Sherman,1981
• "Gisela Richter," in Invisible Giants: 50 Americans That Shaped the Nation but Missed the History Books, Oxford University Press; March 2002.

Obituaries

• Frank E. Brown, Studi Etruschi 41 (1973)
• Homer Thompson, American Philosophical Society-Yearbook (1973)
• Cornelius C. Vermeule III, The Burlington Magazine 115 (1973)