Adolph Goldschmidt was a Jewish German art historian.

He was born in Hamburg.

After a short business career he devoted himself (1885) to the study of the history of art at the universities of Jena

Jena

Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...

, Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

, and Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. He took his degree in 1889 with the dissertation Lübecker Malerei und Plastik bis 1530, the first detailed analysis of the medieval art of northeast Germany.

After traveling through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, France, and Italy, on the presentation of his work Der Albanipsalter in Hildesheim und Seine Beziehung zur Symbolischen Kirchenskulptur des 12. Jahrhunderts (1893), he became Privatdozent

Privatdozent

Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...

at the University of Berlin.

His Studien zur Geschichte der Sächsischen Skulptur in der Uebergangszeit vom Romanischen zum Gotischen Stil (Berlin, 1902) traces the gradual development of German sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 with reference to the period of its florescence in the thirteenth century.

His "Die Kirchenthür des Heil. Ambrosius in Mailand" (1902) for the first time showed the door of the Church of St. Ambrogio in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 to be a monument of early Christian art.

He also contributed a number of important articles on North-German painting, Saxon sculpture, and early medieval miniature manuscripts

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

 to the Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst, and Jahrbuch der Kgl. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen.

Being of Jewish origin, he had to flee Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 and died in Basel, Switzerland in 1944, aged 80.