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Millar, Oliver, Sir

Full Name: Millar, Oliver, Sir

Other Names:

  • Sir Oliver Nicholas Millar

Gender: male

Date Born: 1923

Date Died: 2007

Place Born: Standon, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Career(s): educators


Overview

Courtauld Institute scholar and surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, 1972-1987. Millar was the son of Gerald Arthur Millar and Ruth Cock (Millar). His father was a writer and cousin of the writer Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989). Millar was educated at Rugby showing an early interest in royal iconography. He entered the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London where the Anthony Blunt, who also held the post of Surveyor of the King’s pictures, took Millar on as his advisor. In 1947, Blunt, now chair of the Courtauld, recommended Millar join the staff as assistant surveyor. Millar rose to deputy surveyor in 1949, succeeding Benedict Nicolson. His first book, on Thomas Gainsborough, was published in 1949. An exhibition catalog for the Tate Gallery, on the artist William Dobson, painter to Charles I, was written in 1951. Millar lectured periodically at the Courtauld on British painting, meeting and marrying a student of the Institute, Delia Mary Dawnay (d. 2004) in 1954. In 1957 he and Courtauld scholar Margaret Whinney wrote the Oxford History of English Artvolume on the period 1625-1714. Millar delivered the Charlton Lecture on Art for 1958, “Rubens and the Whitehall Ceiling.” His interest on the dispersed collection of Charles I led to his publishing of the discovered inventories of the monarch, the first as a volume in the Walpole Society’s volume for 1960. Millar and Blunt collaborated on the first public exhibition in the new Queen’s Gallery in 1962, next to Buckingham Palace, “Treasures from the Royal Collection.” Millar contributed the sections of the catalogue raisonné of the Queen’s Pictures for the Tudor, Stuart and early Georgian periods (1963) and the later Georgian (1969). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1970. When knowledge that Blunt had spied for the Soviet Union became increasingly known, Blunt was relieved from his Surveyor duties. Millar replaced Blunt in 1972, the first full-time Surveyor. The same year he became a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. He issued a second royal inventory, Inventories and Valuations of the King’s Goods, 1972, documenting the collection of Charles I before dispersal from the king’s execution in 1649, followed the same year by a catalog for the show “The Age of Charles I” for the Tate Gallery. The Queen’s Pictures appeared in 1977, a history of the collection written for the general reader. Millar created a new Royal Collection department to oversee Crown art, the collection having been the duties of the lord chamberlain since 1625. He wrote Van Dyck in England (1982), in association with a show at the National Portrait Gallery He retired as surveyor emeritus in 1987 and was succeeded by Christopher Lloyd, then assistant keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Millar was named director to a newly created position, the Royal Collection, which now included art, drawings, prints and the library, his final year of service. He retired in 1987. In retirement, he worked on a final section of the royal collection catalog on the Victorian pictures, which appeared in 1992. Millar contributed the section on Van Dyke’s works executed in England for the Van Dyke catalog of 2004 before his death at age 84. He is not related to Keeper of Manuscripts, British Museum, Eric G. Millar. Millar was an expert in Anthony Van Dyck and 17th-century British painting. His particular interest was patronage of portraiture. A scholar in the antiquarian tradition, he was ill at ease especially in later years with fundraising. Millar instituted conservation measures and a professional department devoted to that under his tenure.


Selected Bibliography

and Whinney, Margaret Dickens. English Art, 1625-1714. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; “Catalogue of the Collections of Charles I, by Abraham van der Doort.” Walpole Society 37 (1958-1960): 1-256; “The Inventories and Valuations of the King’s Goods, 1649-51.” Walpole Society 43 (1970-1972): 1-443; The Age of Charles I: Painting in England, 1620-1649. London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1972; The Queen’s Pictures. New York: Macmillan, 1977; contributor, Van Dyck: a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings. New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/Yale University Press, 2004.


Sources

[obituaries:] Corby, Tom. “Sir Oliver Millar: Eminent Art Historian who Nurtured the Queen’s Paintings but was Caustic about Some of Them.” Guardian (London) May 17, 2007, p. 36; White, Christopher. “Sir Oliver Millar: Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures who Oversaw the Cataloguing of the Royal Collection.” Independent (London), May 16, 2007, p. 32; “Sir Oliver Millar Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures who was also a Leading International Expert on the Painter Anthony van Dyck.” Daily Telegraph (London) May 14, 2007, p. 23.


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"Millar, Oliver, Sir." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/millaro/.


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Courtauld Institute scholar and surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, 1972-1987. Millar was the son of Gerald Arthur Millar and Ruth Cock (Millar). His father was a writer and cousin of the writer Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989). Millar was educated at

Millar, Eric G.

Full Name: Millar, Eric G.

Other Names:

  • Eric George Millar

Gender: male

Date Born: 1887

Date Died: 1966

Place Died: Bury Saint Edmunds, Suffolk, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): English (culture or style) and manuscripts (documents)

Career(s): curators


Overview

Scholar of English illuminated manuscripts and Keeper of Manuscripts, British Museum,1944-47. Millar’s parents were George Millar (d. 1889) and Edith Antsey (Millar). He was the nephew of Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934), a cartoonist for Punch. Millar was educated at Charterhouse and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His uncle’s friends included a bicycled riding companion, the manuscript scholar Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936). Guthrie, who went by the name of Antsey, convinced James to give his nephew an appointment at the British Museum, Department of Manuscripts in 1912. James was a cataloger for the manuscript libraries of Cambridge College and was impressed by Millar’s personal collection. At the British Museum, Millar made the friendship of another leader in manuscript studies, Sydney Cockerell. Cockerell, like Millar, an amateur collector. Millar’s work was very much a continuation of their research. In 1923 he published a facsimile edition of the Lindisfarne Gospels. His major contribution to scholarship came in publication of English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century, volume one appearing in 1926. Volume two appeared in 1928. This was the first serious chronology of English manuscripts. Even the reviews of this book, notably that of Otto Homburger became scholarship in their own rights. Interspersed between these appear his Catalogue of Western Manuscripts of the Chester Beatty Collection, 1927 and 1930. Again, Millar demonstrated his careful paleographic and art-historical sensibilities. The third volume to this series was never completed. He became Deputy Director in 1932 and published the second of his facsimile editions for the British Museum, this of the Luttrell Psalter. The Rutland Psalter facsimile was issued in 1937. In 1944 he was promoted to Keeper of Manuscripts, a position he held until his retirement in 1947. At his death, his personal collection was bequeathed to the Museum where he had spent his life.


Selected Bibliography

English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century. Paris: G. van Oest, 1926; The Lindisfarne Gospels . . . from Cotton ms. Nero D.IV in the British Museum with pages from two related manuscripts. London: British Museum, 1923; The St. Trond Lectionary: a MS from the Abbey of St. Trond. Oxford: The Roxburghe Club, 1949; The Library of A. Chester Beatty: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts. 2 vols. London: [Privately printed by] John Johnson at the Oxford University Press/Bernard Quaritch, 1927-1930; The Parisian Miniaturist Honoré. New York: T. Yoseloff, 1959; edited with Power, D’Arcy. Arderne, John. De arte phisicali et de cirurgia of Master John Arderne, Surgeon of Newark, dated 1412. London: J. Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1922.


Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 514; Wormald, Francis. “George Eric Millar.” The Eric George Millar Bequest of Manuscripts and Drawings 1967: a Commemorative Volume. London: British Museum, 1968, pp. 3-6; [obituary:] “Dr. E. G. Millar Expert On Medieval Manuscripts.” The Times (London) January 15, 1966; p. 10; “Dr. Eric Millar.” The Times (London). January 19, 1966, p. 14.




Citation

"Millar, Eric G.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/millare/.


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Scholar of English illuminated manuscripts and Keeper of Manuscripts, British Museum,1944-47. Millar’s parents were George Millar (d. 1889) and Edith Antsey (Millar). He was the nephew of Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934), a cartoonist for Punch.

Milizia, Francesco

Full Name: Milizia, Francesco

Gender: male

Date Born: 1725

Date Died: 1798

Place Born: Apulia, Italy

Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), art theory, Baroque, biography (general genre), Italian (culture or style), and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Italian art- and archtiectural historian, theorist and biographer; articulated the 18th-century sentiment against the Baroque. Milizia stemmed from an ancient noble family. He was born in Oria, Kingdom of Naples near Otranto; which is present-day Apulia, Italy. When he was nine years old he was placed in the charge of his maternal uncle, a physician and university professor in Padua where Milizia became fascinated by science and technology. At sixteenth he ran away to Rome to live with his father. His father sent him to Naples to study physics, math, science and philosophy with the writer Antonio Genovesi (1713-1769). Milizia took further studies in France, returning to Italy and in 1750 where he married a wealthy woman from Gallipoli. In 1761 he returned to Rome, joining the circle of art literatti which included the Spanish diplomatist and art collector Don José Nicholas De Azara (1731-1804), the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs, and the first modern art historian, Johann Joachim Winckelmann. He received the appointment of Superintendent of the Farnese Buldings in the Papal See from King Ferdinand IV of Naples. By 1768 Milizia, in cooperation with Azara, Mengs and Winckelmann, annonymously published the first of a series of influential theoretical books, a biographical dictionary of architects, Le Vite di più celebri architetti d’ogni nazione e d’ogni tempo. The book is preceded by an essay on architecture wherein he outlines his principles. He followed this with a work of drama theory, Del Teatro in 1772. He resigned his appointment in 1780 to devote himself to writing. His most important work appeared the following year as the Principj di architettura civile. In it, he theorized what he considered the rational principles of architecture. Milizia’s interest remained in fine arts theory however. His Dell’arte di vedere nelle belle arti del disegno secondo i principi di Sulzer e di Mengs also appeared in 1781. The third edtion of his Le Vite appeared that year as well, the first of the editions to bear his name. Milizia resigned his Superintendency for the King in 1782 to devoted himself to writing and translations of his own works with the collaboration of the important Italian neoclassical architects of the period, e.g., Giovanni Antonio Antolini (1753-1841). An architectural treatice, the first of an intended mult-volume set on the arts, Roma delle belle Arti del disegno was published in 1787. A second work on the theater, Discorso sul teatro appeared in 1789. Milizia next issued his Dizionario delle belle arti del disegno in 1797, an enlightenment work which, among other entries, famously characterized the Baroque, “Barocco è il superlativo del bizzarro, l’eccesso del ridicolo.” He also wrote very detailed biographies of the most important artists of the times, including Borromini, Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. His views were so extreme he became persona non grata in Rome (Kaufmann). At his death in 1798, a portion of his library was donated to the national Library of Rome as well as his letters and manuscripts. Manuscripts and letters are also at Biblioteca del Seminario of Padua; his last will and testament is at the National Archives of Rome (ASR 30 Notai Capitolini, ufficio 25, notaio Salvi, 23 marzo 1798, f. 615). Milizia’s writings on art theory, lives of artists, and his historical research were highly influential on his and the ensuing generations of art historians.His basic architectural theory was drawn from Vitruvius to which he added strong personal views. Although he at times approved of Baroque architecture, he desparaged it later as well as much of Michelangelo’s work, including sacristy decorations of St. Peter’s and his sculpture of Moses. His animadversion of Baroque architecture set taste against this style until the end of the 19th century when Cornelius Gurlitt rehabilitated the thinking on the subject as once again worthy of study. Milizia considered himsself a cultural theorist, writing studies ranging from theatre studies to art literature and theory. Although his architectural theory suggested that ancient architecture was exhausted as a style, his writings did much to promote Neo-classical architecture. Neither a leader nor an original mind, his writings reflect the changes in architectural taste of the eighteenth century, a fact he admitted to by terming himself a “heterogenous compound of contradictions” (Kaufmann). Articles about Milizia and his writing began to appear as early as 1808.


Selected Bibliography

and Monaldini, Giuseppe Antonio. Le vite de’ più celebri architetti d’ogni nazione e d’ogni tempo: precedute da un saggio sopra l’ architettura. Rome: Nella stamparia di Paolo Giunchi Komarek a spese di Venanzio Monaldini libraro, 1768, English, The Lives of Celebrated Architects, Ancient amd Modern: with Historical and Critical Observations on their Works, and on the Principles of the Art. London: J. Taylor, 1826; Principj di architettura civile. 3 vols. Bassano: A spese Remondini di Venezia, 1785; Dell’arte di vedere nelle belle arti del disegno secondo i principii di Sulzer e di Mengs. Venice: Presso G. Pasquali, 1781; Roma delle belle arti del disegno. Parte primo. Dell’architettura civile. Bassano: [G. Remondini], 1787; Dizionario delle belle arti del disegno, estratto in gran parte dalla Enciclopedia metodica. 2 vols. Bassano, 1797.


Sources

Cardinali, Antonmaria. “Vita di Francesco Milizia Scritta da lui medesimo.” in Opuscoli diversi di F. Milizia risguardanti le belle Arti. Bologna: Dalla Stamperia Cardinali e Frulli, 1826, pp. v-xxxiv; O’Neal, William B. “Francesco Milizia, 1725-1798.” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 13, no. 3 (October 1954): 12-15; Kaufmann, Emil. Architecture in the Age of Reason: Baroque and Post-Baroque in England, Italy and France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955, pp. 100-104; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 83-85; Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, p. 125; Dictionary of Art 21: 600; Francesco Milizia e la cultura del Settecento a cura di Mariella Basile e Grazia Distaso. Galatina: Congedo, 2002; Pasquali, Susanna. “Francesco Milizia a Roma, 1761-1798.” in Antonio Canova: la cultura figurativa e letteraria dei grandi centri italiani. Atti a cura di Fernando Mazzocca e Gianni Venturi. Bassano del Grappa, 2005, pp. 89-101.




Citation

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Italian art- and archtiectural historian, theorist and biographer; articulated the 18th-century sentiment against the Baroque. Milizia stemmed from an ancient noble family. He was born in Oria, Kingdom of Naples near Otranto; which is present-day

Milchhöfer, Arthur

Full Name: Milchhöfer, Arthur

Other Names:

  • Arthur Milchhoefer

Gender: male

Date Born: 1852

Date Died: 1903

Place Born: Kutuzovo, Krasnoznamensky District, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia

Place Died: Kiel, Schleswig Holstein, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style) and Classical


Overview

Most noted for his efforts to trace the origins of ancient Greek art in Mycenaean and earlier antecedents. He was born in Schirwindt, Ostpreußen, Germany, which is present-day Kutuzovo, Krasnoznamensky District, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. His Die Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland (1883) was one of the inspirations for Arthur J. Evans in his later discoveries of Mycenae.


Selected Bibliography

Die Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland, 1883.


Sources

Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 103-105.




Citation

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Most noted for his efforts to trace the origins of ancient Greek art in Mycenaean and earlier antecedents. He was born in Schirwindt, Ostpreußen, Germany, which is present-day Kutuzovo, Krasnoznamensky District, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. His

Milanesi, Gaetano

Full Name: Milanesi, Gaetano

Other Names:

  • Gaetano Milanesi

Gender: male

Date Born: 1813

Date Died: 1895

Place Born: Siena, Siena, Tuscany, Italy

Place Died: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, Renaissance, Sienese, and Sienese School


Overview

Sienese documentary art historian, editor of the the definitive Vasari Lives edition, founder of modern Italian scholarship of the Italian renaissance. Milanesi studied law, but never completed a degree. Instead, his talents at discerning Italian scripts and handwriting led him to the Biblioteca Comunale at Siena and the sources pertaining to art history. He set about transcribing and publishing with Lorenzo Ilari, an index to this collection, a project which he worked on throughout his life. In 1842 Milanesi joined the periodical L’Antologia, founded in 1821. Together with his brother, Carlo (1816-1867), father Vincenzo Marchese (1808-1891) and Carlo Pini (1806-1879), Milanesi 1845 founded the Società di Amatori delle Belle Arti. The group published a scholarly edition of Vite dei pittori by Giogrio Vasari from 1846 and 1870, exposing the numerous errors of Vasari in a systematic way. In 1848 he was named Ispettore of the Accademia fiorentina di Belle Arti. In 1854 Milanesi published his Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese the first in his series of published primary sources in Sienese art history largely from the Archivio dell’Opera de Duomo in Orvieto. Milanesi continued his series of documents, mostly on Siena and Florence art and artists. In 1856 he moved to Florence as the “resident academic” at the Accademia della Crusca. In 1858 was appointed Deputy Director of the Archivio di Stato in Florence and in 1864 succeeded the founder as editor of the guida dell’Archivio Storico. The same year he and Pini published a collection of artists’ writing which included photographic examples of the script. He published an edition of the letters of Michelangelo in 1875. A second, nine-volume edition of the Vasari Lives appeared between 1878 and 1885 correcting errors of the first edition and including all known Vasari writings. Milanesi became Arciconsolo of the Accademia della Crusca in 1883. Finally, he was appointed Soprintendente degli Archivi Toscani in 1889, which he held for the next two years. Milanesi’s publications form the starting point for modern Italian art history. His revaluing of Vasari was based in the Positivist belief that sources could uncover an accurate truth. The archival publications he wrote greatly supported the findings, among others of the American art historians Bernard Berenson and Richard Offner, who used his research extensively.


Selected Bibliography

Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, raccolti ed illustrati. 3 vols. Siena: O. Porri, 1854-56; edited, with Milanesi, Carlo, and Marchese, Vincenzo, and Pini, Carol. [first ed.] Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti. Florence: Società di Amatori delle Arti belle/F. Le Monnier, 1846-1857 [second ed.] Le vite de’più eccelenti pittori, scultori ed architettori seritte da Giorgio Vasari. 9 vols. Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1878-85; edited. Buonarroti, Michelangelo. Le lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti: pubblicate coi ricordi ed i contratti artistici. Florence: Le Monnier, 1875; edited. Cennini, Cennino. Il libro dell’arte: o, Trattato della pittura. Florence : F. LeMonnier, 1859; and Pini, Carol. La scrittura di artisti italiani (sec. XIV-XVII.). 3 vols. Florence: Presso l’editore, 1869-73.


Sources

Ladis, Andrew. “The Unmaking of a Connoisseur.” in, Offner, Richard. A Discerning Eye: Essays on Early Italian Painting. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p. 5; Petrioli, Piergiacoma, ed. Gaetano Milanesi: Biografia e carteggio artistico. Siena: Accademia senese degli Intronati, 2005; Direttori dell’ “Archivio storico italiano” http://www.storia.unifi.it/asidspt/DSPT/varia/direttori/milanesi.htm




Citation

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Sienese documentary art historian, editor of the the definitive Vasari Lives edition, founder of modern Italian scholarship of the Italian renaissance. Milanesi studied law, but never completed a degree. Instead, his talents at discerning

Miesel, Victor H

Full Name: Miesel, Victor H

Other Names:

  • Victor H. Miesel

Gender: male

Date Born: 12 October 1928

Place Born: Detroit, Wayne, MI, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): nineteenth century (dates CE) and twentieth century (dates CE)


Overview

German-art scholar; professor of 19th- and 20th-century art, University of Michigan, 1958-. Miesel attended Wayne State University as an undergraduate receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1950. He continued on to the University of Michigan, obtaining his M.A. in 1951. While working on his Ph.D. he taught as an assistant professor of art history beginning in 1958. He wrote his dissertation on Peter Paul Rubens and the influence of antique art under Harold Wethey. His Ph.D. was granted in 1959. Miesel lectured at Barnard College for the 1964-1964 year before returning to Michigan and gaining tenure as an associate professor in 1966. His anthology of German Expressionist writing appeared in 1970. In 1972 he was promoted to (full) professor at Michigan. He retired at professor emeritus in 1995.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Rubens and Ancient Art. University of Michigan, 1959; “The Term Expressionism in the Visual Arts, 1911-1920.” in The Uses of History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1968; Voices of German Expressionism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1970.


Sources

Directory of American Scholars. 6th ed. vol. 1 (History). New York: R. R. Bowker, 1974, p. 518.




Citation

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German-art scholar; professor of 19th- and 20th-century art, University of Michigan, 1958-. Miesel attended Wayne State University as an undergraduate receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1950. He continued on to the University of Michigan, obtaining h

Miedema, Hessel

Full Name: Miedema, Hessel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1929

Date Died: 2019

Place Born: Sneek, Friesland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Institution(s): Princessehof Ceramics Museum


Overview





Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Miedema, Hessel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/miedemah/.


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Middleton, J. H.

Full Name: Middleton, J. H.

Other Names:

  • John Henry Middleton

Gender: male

Date Born: 1846

Date Died: 1896

Place Born: York, England, UK

Place Died: Kessarevo, Bulgaria

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): archaeology


Overview

Museum director and archaeologist. Middleton was the son of the architect John Middleton (1820-1885) and Maria Margaret Pritchett (Middleton). He traveled to Italy with his family where he was initially educated and then Cheltenham, England, where he attended Cheltenham College and then Exeter College, Oxford beginning in 1865. The following year, however, he suffered a severe depression, precipitated by the death of a close friend, and remained at home, privately reading art and archaeology in solitude for nearly six years. During this time he became addicted to morphine, prescribed by his doctor, as a remedy for insomnia. Middleton recovered enough to begin serious world touring, including Salt Lake City and the Rocky Mountains of the United States; Mexico, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and north Africa. In Morocco where he secured entrance to Great Mosque by posing as an Islamic pilgrim. He returned to England and apprenticed in architecture under Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), and then as a partner in the firm of his father in Westminster. At his father’s death in 1885, he liquidated the firm to begin life as a professional archaeologist. He attended courses at the Royal Academy. In 1879 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries which led to articles in that Society’s publications and in the Journal of Hellenic Studies and Archaeologia as well as entries for the 9th edition Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1885 he published his book Ancient Rome in 1885. He was elected Slade professor of fine art at Cambridge the following year (to 1892), receiving an honorary MA degree at Cambridge the same year and another at Oxford in 1887. His book Ancient Rome was popular enough for a second edition in 1888, the same year he was elected a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. In 1889 Middleton was named Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. As director, he produced the catalog Engraved Gems of Classical Times in 1891. The following year was a watershed one for him: he became a lecturer at the Royal Academy in London and published three books, Illuminated MSS of Classical and Mediaeval Times, Remains of Ancient Rome, and The Lewis Collection of Gems, all in 1892. In addition, he was appointed director of the art collections of the South Kensington Museum (modern Victoria and Albert Museum) and married Bella Stillman. Middleton was awarded a Litt.D. at Cambridge in 1893 followed by a D.CL, Oxford in 1894. The South Kensington Museum was in administrative disarray and Middleton’s necessary involvement, coupled with his life-long depression and drug addiction, increased his despondency and drug use. At age 49, he overdosed on morphine (laudanum) and died. He was cremated at Woking, and is buried at Brookwood cemetery. In 1900, his drawings on the classical buildings of Athens were issued by Ernest A. Gardner. His lectures on art at Cambridge convinced Roger Fry, then a biology student, to pursue art instead.


Selected Bibliography

The Engraved Gems of Classical Times: with a Catalogue of the Gems in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge: University Press, 1891; The Lewis Collection of Gems and Rings in the Possession of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1892; Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times: their Art and their Technique. Cambridge: University Press, 1892; The Remains of Ancient Rome. 2 vols. London and Edinburgh, A. and C. Black, 1892; Ancient Rome in 1885. Edinburgh, A. & C. Black, 1885; and Gardner, Ernest A., ed. Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings. London: Macmillan, 1900.


Sources

Cust, Lionel, revised by Smail, Richard. Dictionary of National Biography; [obituaries:] “Death Of Professor Middleton.” The Times (London) June 15, 1896, p. 8




Citation

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Museum director and archaeologist. Middleton was the son of the architect John Middleton (1820-1885) and Maria Margaret Pritchett (Middleton). He traveled to Italy with his family where he was initially educated and then Cheltenham, England, where

Middeldorf, Ulrich

Full Name: Middeldorf, Ulrich

Other Names:

  • Ulrich Alexander Middeldorf

Gender: male

Date Born: 1901

Date Died: 1983

Place Born: Stassfurt am Bode, Saxony, Germany

Place Died: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, Renaissance, and sculpture (visual works)

Career(s): educators


Overview

Professor and chair of the Department of Art, University of Chicago; historian of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Middeldorf was the son of Hans Middeldorf, a mining engineer, and Meta Zuckerschwerdt (Middeldorf). His family was of Dutch ancestry. Middeldorf began his study of art history in 1920-1921 initially under Heinrich Wölfflin, already retired, and August Liebmann Mayer at the University of Munich. His dissertation, written under Adolph Goldschmidt in Berlin, centered on late medieval sculpture, Die Entwicklung der thüringische-sächsische Plastik seit etwa 1250 bis 1350. Berlin, with its spectacular collections at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, also gave him an enthusiasm for Italian Renaissance sculpture and medals. He spent 1924-1926 as a Fellow and the Keeper of the photography collection (the Fototeca) at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence and assisting Richard Offner in the Corpus of Florentine Painting. Middeldorf visited London frequently and made the acquaintance of its director, George Francis Hill. In 1928 he published two articles with his colleague, Martin Weinberger, the latter in the first volume of the nascent British journal Pantheon. A vocal opponent to Nazism, Middeldorf emigrated to the United States in 1935 to become an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago at the personal recommendation of Bernard Berenson. He remained at the University, eventually becoming chair, until 1953. His legendary Chicago department included Joshua C. Taylor and Otto von Simson. Middeldorf concomitantly was honorary curator of sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1941-1953, where he was responsible for several major acquisitions. From 1953-1968, he served as the Director of the Kunsthistoriches Institut in Florence, where he worked to increase its reputation as an institution of sound art historical scholarship. A skilled administrator, Middeldorf raised funds locusing the institution on solid financial grounds. He also moved the institution to new quarters, doubled the size of the library and opened the doors to scholars of all nations. His Chicago students included Seymour Slive, Bates Lowry, Peter H. Selz and Frank Dowley.

Middeldorf distinguished himself among American academics as one particularly devoted to the studying works of art in their original, eschewing a reliance on illustrations. His many writings indicate a broad knowledge of art in situ. His written contribution lacked the single specialized monograph on a topic that is a staple among academics. Though his writing was extremely diverse within the history of art, it was limited to extensive catalog entries and articles. As a teacher, he was known to be aloof except to his graduate students.


Selected Bibliography

[collected wrtings:] Barocchi, Paola, editor. Raccolta di Scritti. 3 vols. Florence: Studio per edizioni scelte,1979-81; and Weinberger, Martin. “Unbeachtete Werke der Brüder Rossellino. Münchner Jahrbuch (1928): 85-100;  and Weinberger, Martin. “Französische Figuren des frühen 14. Jahrhunderts in der Tosca­na.”  Pantheon.1 (1928): 187-190;Middeldorf Kosegarten, Antje, and, Tigler, Peter, eds. Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968; Raphael’s Drawings. New York: H. Bittner, 1945; Renaissance Medals and Plaquettes: Catalogue. Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1983; Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools, XIV-XIX Century. London: Phaidon Press for the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1976; and Prinz, Wolfram, and Procacci, Ugo. Die Sammlung der Selbstbildnisse in den Uffizien. 3 vols [projected, only one volume published]. Berlin: Mann,1971.


Sources

Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 440-45; The Dictionary of Art; [obituaries:] Radcliffe, Anthony. “Ulrich Middeldorf.” Burlington Magazine 126 (May, 1984): 288-290; Russell, John. “Prof. Middeldorf, Art Scholar, Dies: Expert in Renaissance Studies.” New York Times March 1, 1983, p. B4.




Citation

"Middeldorf, Ulrich." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/middeldorfu/.


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Professor and chair of the Department of Art, University of Chicago; historian of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Middeldorf was the son of Hans Middeldorf, a mining engineer, and Meta Zuckerschwerdt (Middeldorf). His family was of Dutch ancestry.

Michiels, Alfred

Full Name: Michiels, Alfred

Gender: male

Date Born: 1813

Date Died: 1892

Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre), Dutch (culture or style), and Flemish (culture or style)


Overview

wrote on Flemish and Dutch artists; method marked by emphasis on sociocultural context


Selected Bibliography

Histoire de la peinture flamande et hollaindaise. 1844-1848. Histoire de la peinture flamande. 1865-1876.


Sources

Bazin 497




Citation

"Michiels, Alfred." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/michielsa/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

wrote on Flemish and Dutch artists; method marked by emphasis on sociocultural context