Baron Hartwig Seeman

Baron Hartwig Seeman
Born	Ernst Hartwig Johann Seemann June 3, 1833 Stralsund then Prussia, now Germany
Died	March 25, 1886 (age 52) Kosse, Texas

Hartwig Seeman (b. 1833 - d. 1886), born in Stralsund, Prussia, toured the world frequently billed with a self-assumed title Baron as Baron Hardwig Seeman being from Sweden or as Professor Seeman, "The Emperor of Magicians".

Biography

Seeman parents died in 1844 when he was only ten. As an adult, with some small boxes of tricks he constructed himself and thirty dollars, he started in 1860 on a tour as a conjurer. Within a year, he earned enough money to buy more apparatus. While in Sweden and Norway he exhibited his Sphinx Illusion.

He later gained quite a name in India, being the first of modern conjurers to visit that country. He performed the bullet catch in Egypt. He returned to Germany with apparatus all of solid silver, and was considered the richest magician of his time. He appeared in his act literally covered with diamonds, and the suit that he wore on the stage was valued at 50,000 marks.

Later he traveled to the United States in the beginning of 1880 and died in Texas in 1886. Burlingame credits him with the levitation illusion Aga (1880).

His son, Adolph Seeman, carried on the entertainment after the death of his father, and the levitation illusion which he called "Electra".

References

• Die Zauberwelt, Vol. 6, No. 2, November 1900, Hartwig Seemann, by Ed. W. Lufa, page 161
• Magic Mirror, Vol. 4, No. 4, April 1912, Baron Hartwig Seeman, page 28
• The Annals of Conjuring, by Sydney W. Clarke (1929, reprint 2001), Seeman and others, page 291
• Cover, The Linking Ring, Vol. 11, No. 6, August 1931, Baron Hartwig Seeman, Henry R. Evans, page 604
• Cover, The Sphinx, Vol. 48, No. 4, June 1948, The Cover, page 88
• The Sphinx, Vol. 48, No. 11, January 1950, On This and That, By The Readers, … by Dr. Kurt Volkmann, page 280
• The Linking Ring, Vol. 32, No. 3, May 1952, Of legerdemain and diverse juggling knacks… by John Braun – Baron Hartwig, page 19
• The New Tops, Vol. 32, No. 8, August 1992, MEN OF MAGIC, by Robert Olson, SEEMAN, page 21
• The New Tops, Vol. 32, No. 12, December 1992, MEN OF MAGIC, by Robert Olson, Baron Hartwig Seeman II, page 37
• Bio-bibliographisches Lexikon der Zauberkünstler Edition Volker Huber, April 2002, Seemann, Ernst Hartwig Johann dt. Zauberkünstler (03.06.1833 Stralsund; †25.03.1886 Chicago [Texas?]), page 311