I'm trying to establish a tricky bidirectional OneToOne mapping in hibernate. I got the following classes : @Entity @Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.JOINED) public class Parent { @OneToOne private AnotherEntity anotherEntity; } @Entity public class Child1 extends Parent{} @Entity public class Child2 extends Parent{} @Entity public class AnotherEntity { @OneToOne(mappedBy = "anotherEntity") private Child1 child1; @OneToOne(mappedBy = "anotherEntity") private Child1 child2; } The problem here is when I'm launching the application : I got the following message : org.hibernate.MappingException: property [anotherEntity] not found on entity [Child1] at org.hibernate.mapping.PersistentClass.getRecursiveProperty(PersistentClass.java:429) at org.hibernate.mapping.PersistentClass.getReferencedProperty(PersistentClass.java:369) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.originalSecondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1614) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1362) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1727) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1778) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.java:189) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:350) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:335) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1514) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1452) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:294) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:225) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:567) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:913) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:464) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:631) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:588) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:645) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:508) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:449) at org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:133) at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:160) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.initServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1266) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1185) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:1080) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:5015) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5302) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:895) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:871) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:615) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:962) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:536) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.check(HostConfig.java:1471) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:301) at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:836) at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:761) at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.check(ManagerServlet.java:1436) at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.deploy(ManagerServlet.java:673) at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.doPut(ManagerServlet.java:431) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:644) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210) at org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter.doFilter(SetCharacterEncodingFilter.java:108) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:225) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:169) at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:581) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:168) at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:98) at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:927) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:407) at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:999) at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:565) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:307) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662) One obvious solution would be to move the anotherEntity field to Child1 and Child2, but it would mean lose the link from Parent to AnotherEntity. Any help welcome.