Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner (1880 – 1958) was a German art historian and critic and museum official. He was born at Karlsruhe (Baden), and studied at Heidelberg under Henry Thode, and in the Netherlands with Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and with Abraham Bredius, whose assistant he was at the Gallery of The Hague. In 1905 he was called to Berlin by William Bode, under whom he worked at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and Kunstgewerbe Museum. In 1906 was his dissertation from 1904 on Rembrandt published: Rembrandt auf der Lateinschule. In 1907 he was appointed curator of the department of decorative arts in the Metropolitan Museum (New York), which under his supervision became one of the foremost in the world. At the start of the World War he returned to Germany to serve in the army. After service