Founder and first curator of the photography collection at the Brooklyn Museum, 1934 to 1948. Herman DeWetter was born in Estonia in 1880, to minor nobility. DeWetter graduated from the Königlich-Sächsisches Polytechnikum (now Technische Universität Dresden), moving to the United States in 1904. From 1905 to 1918, DeWetter worked as an engineer at the contracting firm Holbrook, Cabot, & Rollins.
During World War I, DeWetter served on the War Trade Board in Washington D.C.. DeWetter began his photography career as a hobbyist during his time as an engineer, Later, he gained employment at the Brooklyn Museum in 1934, and founded the department of photography, where he was the first curator. The photography collection was separated from the Department of Prints and Drawings at the retirement of Susan A. Hutchinson. Carl O. Schniewind became DeWetter’s colleague in the new Prints and Drawings Department. In July 1940, DeWetter helped establish the Brooklyn Museum’s first permanent collection of photography. DeWetter was a fellow of the American Photographic Society and an associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. Simultaneously, DeWetter was a lecturer, writer, and teacher of museum photography, and worked with until he retired in 1949. DeWetter died a year later, on June 25th, 1950.
“Brooklyn Museum: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs,” January 13, 2006, Archives. https://web.archive.org/web/20060113085629/http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/departments/prints-drawings-and-photographs/.
The New York Times. “Notes of the Camera World; Berkshire Exhibition.” July 28, 1940, sec. Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/1940/07/28/archives/notes-of-camera-world-berkshire-exhibition.html.
The New York Times. “H. De Wetter Dies; Expert On Photos; Former Curator at Brooklyn Museum Once Had Served as Engineer in Siberia.” June 27, 1950, sec. Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/1950/06/27/archives/h-de-wetter-dies-expert-on-photos-former-curator-at-brooklyn-museum.html.
Contributors: Zahra Hassan
Citation
Zahra Hassan. "DeWetter, Herman." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/dewetterh/.
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First curator of the photography collection at the Brooklyn Museum, 1934 to 1948. He became curator when the collection was divided from the Department of Prints and Drawings at the retirement of Susan A. Hutchinson. <a
Subject Area(s): manuscripts (documents) and Medieval (European)
Overview
Scholar of medieval manuscript illumination and Renaissance art; Princeton University professor. DeWald was descended from Swiss and Alsatian family. He received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, New Jersey, before moving to Princeton for his graduate degrees. There, the medievalist in the Department of Art and Archaeology, Charles Rufus Morey introduced him to the study of medieval manuscripts. His first article reflecting Morey’s development of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton, was on the iconography of the ascension, published in 1915. DeWald’s dissertation, accepted the following year and written under Morey, was on Pietro Lorenzetti. DeWald had also trained as a singer, performing professionally Germany. With the declaration of World War I the following year, DeWald joined the army as a lieutenant where his fluency in German, French and Italian were used in a capacity as a military attaché in the American Legations at Bern and Warsaw. Upon discharge, he seriously considered an operatic career. However, he began teaching at Rugters in 1920, moving to Columbia University as an assistant professor in 1923. During these years, he continued to research medieval manuscripts, largely in Swiss collections. In 1925, Charles Rufus Morey became head of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton, and invited DeWald to return to his graduate alma mater as an associate professor. Dewald continued to publish on manuscript illumination. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for 1927. In 1930 his published research branched to Trecento painting, his second life area of interest. His publication of a facsimile edition of the Utrecht Psalter, 1932, led to the realization that Latin-manuscripts could not be fully appreciated without an understand of their Greek counterparts and that an appreciation of the range of extent manuscripts was key for future research. Together with his fellow Princeton medievalists Albert M. Friend, Jr., and Kurt Weitzmann, the three established a corpus of the Illustrated Septuagint. He was promoted to full professor in 1938. Two important books in the Septuagint corpus series appeared in 1941 and 1942. At the height of World War II, DeWald again joined the army, now assigned to recover looted works of art in Italy and Austria which were in jeopardy of theft by conquering soldiers. He was awarded an honorary degree from Rutgers in 1946. The following year, he succeeded the retiring Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., as director of Princeton’s Art Museum. DeWald largely abandoned manuscripts in the post-war years in favor of Italian painting. He retired from the Museum in 1960, publishing his survey, Italian Painting: 1200-1600, the result of his years of lecturing on the topic, the following year. In retirement, he was a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He was a participant in the rescue of art after the Arno River flood in Florence in 1966. He collapsed after attending a Princeton-Columbia football game and died. DeWald was engaged in a monograph on Duccio which remained uncompleted at the time of his death. DeWald was one of the medievalists comprising the group assembled by Morey who dominated Princeton’s Department of Art and Archaeology and helped establish the discipline in the United States. The others, in addition to Morey himself, Friend, and Weitzmann, included W. Frederick Stohlman and E. Baldwin Smith.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Pietro Lorenzetti. Princeton University, 1916; The Illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for the Department of Art and Archaeology, 1932; The Stuttgart Psalter, Biblia Folio 23, Württemburgische Landesbibliotek, Stuttgart. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for the Department of Art and Archaeology, 1930; and Friend, Albert M., and Weitzmann, Kurt. The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint. 3 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941ff.; Italian Painting, 1200-1600. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1961.
Sources
Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 63; Kienbusch, Carl Otto von. [ DeWald profile]. [Princeton University] Record of the Art Museum 19 (1960): 2-4; [obituary:] Krautheimer, Richard, and Weitzmann, Kurt. “Ernest Theodore DeWald.” Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Mediaeval Academy of America [section] Speculum 44, no. 3 (July 1969): 526-527; “Ernest DeWald, Art Historian, 77.” New York Times October 7, 1968, p. 47.
Scholar of medieval manuscript illumination and Renaissance art; Princeton University professor. DeWald was descended from Swiss and Alsatian family. He received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, New Jersey, before moving to Prince
Place Died: Dilbeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Flanders, Belgium
Home Country/ies: Belgium
Subject Area(s): sculpture (visual works)
Career(s): curators
Overview
Specialist in sculpture, particularly of the Meuse River Valley; curator of sculpture at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Devigne studied art history and archaeology at the University of Liège, in Belgium. When she obtained her doctoral degree in 1912, she was the first female doctor in art history in Belgium. Her dissertation, on medieval art in the Meuse River Valley, was granted from the University of Liège with Marcel Laurent as her dissertation supervisor. In Paris, she studied with André Michel at the école du Louvre. Between 1915 and 1949, she held several positions at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. In 1923, she published the Catalogue de la sculpture, which includes a considerable number of nineteenth-century works of Belgian artists. In 1928, she was appointed assistant curator and in 1935 curator. In addition to her work in the museum, she was professor of the history of costume at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. In addition, she taught the history of sculpture at the école des Hautes études in Ghent, and art history at the école normale provinciale d’instituteurs in Morlanwelz. She regularly published articles in various periodicals as well as a number of books. She was a contributor to the Biographie nationale, issued by the Royal Academy of Belgium. She also contributed to the Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler and to the Enciclopedia Italiana. Her magnum opus, La sculpture mosane du XIIe au XVIe siècle, the publication of which was delayed by World War I, appeared in 1932. During World War II, Devigne replaced the chief curator of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Léo Van Puyvelde, who then lived as an exile in England. During this period, Devigne had the difficult task of dealing with the German authorities. She catalogued the painting collection della Faille de Leverghem, donated to the museum in 1942. After the liberation, her interim directorship was harshly criticized, which led to her replacement by curator Arthur Laes (1876-1959), who held this post until Van Puyvelde returned the next year. The “comité de patronage”, on the other hand, which praised her for her conduct during the war, made several proposals to keep her on her position. Meanwhile she was severely attacked by the press. She left the museum in 1949 with bitterness. Her rehabilitation followed in 1951, when the journal Front was condemned for the publications in which it dishonored Devigne with slander. This judgment was confirmed by the Court of appeal in the next year. After her retirement, Devigne traveled for a long visit to the USA. She worked on a short English overview of the history of sculpture in Belgium, which appeared in New York, in the series Art Treasures of Belgium. Her 1932 La sculpture mosane du XIIe au XVIe siècle is an elaborate and learned essay which provides great deal of information and documentation on the larger cultural contexts in which the arts in the Meuse River Valley flourished and developed. Devigne was particularly interested in aspects of stylistic relationships between the sculptors in the Meuse Valley and artists in Germany, France, Flanders and Italy.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation] La sculpture au Pays de Liège du XIVe à la fin du XVIe siècle. Université de Liège, 1911-1912; Constantin Meunier. Turnhout: Brepols, 1919; Thomas Vinçotte. Turnhout: Brepols, 1919; Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Catalogue de la sculpture. Brussels: Weissenbruch, 1923; Van Eyck. Brussels : L. J. Kryn, 1926; Laurent Delvaux et ses élèves: De la parenté d’inspiration des artistes flamands du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècle. Brussels: Van Oest, 1928; La sculpture mosane du XIIe au XVIe siècle: contribution à l’étude de l’art dans la région de la Meuse moyenne. Brussels: Van Oest, 1932; Collection della Faille de Leverghem. Brussels: Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, 1944; Esquisse de l’histoire du costume en Belgique. Brussels: Pawwels Fils, 1952; Sculpture, vol. 2 of Art Treasures of Belgium. New York: Belgian Govt. Information Center, 1954.
Sources
Oudheidkundig Jaarboek 3e series 4 (1924): 284; De Seyn, Eug. Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique. 1. Brussels: éditions L’Avenir, 1935, p. 371; Chapman, Gretel. Mosan Art, an annotaded bibliography. Boston: Reference Publications in Art History, 1988, p. 197; Van Lennep, Jacques. Catalogue de la sculpture. Artistes nés entre 1750 et 1882. Brussels: Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, 1992, pp. 67-73; Marcus-de Groot, Yvette. “‘Geen mooier studievak voor een vrouw dan de kunstgeschiedenis’. Vrouwelijke kunsthistorici en hun aandeel in de traditie.” In Van der Stighelen, Katlijne and Westen, Mirjam, eds., Elck zijn Waerom. Ghent: Ludion, 1999, pp. 102-113; Marcus-de Groot, Yvette. Kunsthistorische vrouwen van weleer. De eerste generatie in Nederland vóór 1921. Hilversum: Verloren, 2003, pp. 74, 123, 125-126, 167-169; Devillez, Virginie. “Le musée en guerre (1939-1947) ” Les Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Deux siècles d’histoire. Brussels: Dexia Banque et Racine, 2003, 1, pp. 361-369; [obituary :] Sulzberger, Suzanne. “In memoriam Marguerite Devigne.” Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 35 (1966): 234-235.
Contributors: Monique Daniels
Citation
Monique Daniels. "Devigne, Marguerite." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/devignem/.
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Specialist in sculpture, particularly of the Meuse River Valley; curator of sculpture at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Devigne studied art history and archaeology at the University of Liège, in Belgium. When she obtained her doctoral
Medievalist, Chairman of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1968-1972. Deuchler attended a gymnasium in Zürich before studying art history at the University of Paris. He received his Ph.D. from the University in Bonn in 1956, writing his dissertation on the stain glass of Laon cathedral under Herbert von Einem. He was appointed a Privatdozent of art in 1964 at the university in Zürich. He married fellow art historian Karin Lauke, a specialist in 17th-century Bolognese art. He returned to Bonn as an assistant under von Einem. Deuchler joined the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, in 1966 as an assistant. In 1968, Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving hired Deuchler to be chair of medieval art and curator of the Cloisters, the Met’s medieval museum in Fort Tryon Park. It was the position Hoving himself had held before becoming director, though Deuchler officially replaced William Forsyth, acting curator. He was concomitantly appointed professor of medieval arts at New York University. Deuchler set about making the Cloisters a center for medieval scholarship, not simply a museum. In coordination with the centenary of the Metropolitan, he mounted the Met show “The Year 1200” in 1970 and an accompanying conference of the same title. He resigned from the Met in 1972 to become professor of art history at the University in Geneva. He was subsequently named director of the Swiss Institute, Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome. In 1984 he published on monograph on the trencento painter Duccio. He was appointed president of the Foundation Langmatt Sidney and Jenny Brown, which runs the Villa Brown in Baden, Switzerland, an art museum in the home of a former industrialist. He retired to Florence. In 2005 the Metropolitan acquired Duccio’s “Madonna and Child” for the highest price ever paid by the museum for a painting. The work, which most scholars had attributed to the master, was not endorsed by Deuchler in his Duccio monograph. In defense of the Met’s acquisition, Keith Christiansen, Old Master paintings curator at the Met, described Deuchler’s scholarship as “eccentric.” (Tomkins)
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Die Chorfenster der Kathedrale in Laon Ein ikonographischer und stilgeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Kenntnis nordfranzösischer Glasmalerei des 13. Jahrhunderts. Bonn, 1956; Der Tausendblumenteppich in Bern: Einführung. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1966; Der Ingeborgpsalter. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967; A Short History of Painting from Cave Art to Jackson Pollock. New York, Abrams, 1968; The Year 1200. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970; The Cloisters Apocalypse. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971; and Roethlisberger, Marcel, and Lüthy, Hans, and Wüthrich, Lucas. La peinture suisse: du Moyen Âge à l’aube du 20e siècle. Genva: Skira, 1975, English, Swiss Painting: from the Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1976; and Wirth, Jean. Elsass: Kunstdenkmäler und Museen. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980; edited. Museen der Schweiz. Zürich: Ex Libris, 1981; Duccio. Milan: Electa, 1984; and Zarnecki, George, and Hutter, Irmgard. Romanik, Gotik, Byzanz. Stuttgart: Belser, 1986; Ars Helvetica: die visuelle Kultur der Schweiz. Disentis: Pro Helvetia/Desertina, 1987-; and Bucher-Schmidt, Gisela. Kunstbetrieb. Disentis: Desertina Verlag, 1987; Stichjahr 1912: Künste und Musik der frühen Moderne im Urteil ihrer Protagonisten. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2003.
Sources
“Swiss is Named Cloisters Head, Young Medievalist to Take Over Museum in Fall.” New York Times May 26, 1968, p. 72; Hofmann, Paul. “Little-Known Impressionist Treasure.” New York Times. June 21, 1992, Section 5, p. 25; Schweizerlexikon 3 (1993): 161; Tomkins, Calvin. “The Missing Madonna.” New Yorker, July 11, 2005, p. 42.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen
Citation
Lee Sorensen. "Deuchler, Florens." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/deuchlerf/.
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Medievalist, Chairman of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1968-1972. Deuchler attended a gymnasium in Zürich before studying art history at the University of Paris. He received his Ph.D. from the Univer
Place Born: Marcinelle, Hainaut, Province de, Wallonia, Belgium
Place Died: Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Home Country/ies: Belgium
Subject Area(s): Early Netherlandish and painting (visual works)
Career(s): art critics
Overview
Art critic, author of monograph on Van der Weyden; lawyer; politician of the socialist party, minister. Destrée was the eldest son of Olivier Destrée (1834-1899), an engineer, and Clémentine-Jeanne Defontaine (1836-1876). He attended high school at the Collège de Charleroi, Charleroi, Belgium, and studied law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, from which university he earned his doctoral degree in law in 1883. In 1886 he joined the Bar of Advocates of Charleroi. At the same time he was attracted to the literary movement and he became a collaborator to La Jeune Belgique. Fascinated by the artist Odilon Redon, he published in this review in 1886 the first article in Belgium on the French artist. He also was a regular contributor to the Journal de Charleroi. Destrée married Marie Danse (1867-1942) in 1889. After having befriended Redon, Destrée cataloged his lithographs in 1891, L’Oeuvre lithographique de Odilon Redon. In 1894 he started his political career as elected député for Charleroi in the House of Representatives. He expressed his socialist ideas about art in his essay Art et socialisme (1896). His recommendations include a progressive and modern view on the conservation of monuments. Destrée authored three studies on Italian painters of the early Renaissance, successively in 1899, 1900, and 1903, Notes sur les Primitifs italiens. The etchings were created by his wife and his father in Law, Auguste Danse. In 1903, he served as a councilman of the municipality of Marcinelle. In charge of the department of Instruction publique, he created the first popular university in this town, open to the general public, where he himself taught a course of art history. He also proposed art education at primary schools, and for future teachers. Destrée, born and grown up in the French-speaking part of his country, held a special interest in Walloon art. His study on the 1911 Beaux-Arts exhibition in Charleroi, Études sur les arts anciens de Wallonie: conférences à l’Exposition des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi en 1911, appeared in 1912. During World War I the Belgian government sent Destrée on diplomatic missions to Italy, Russia and China. Between 1919 and 1921 he held the position of Ministre des Sciences et des Arts. In 1920 Destrée was elected a member of the Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Beaux-Arts. He created the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, of which institution he became a member in 1922. Destrée had a special interest in Rogier van der Weyden and Robert Campin, his master, the so-called Maître de Flémalle. His essays, Van der Weyden (Rogier de la Pasture), and Le Maître dit de Flémalle (Robert Campin) appeared in the Grands maîtres series (Kryn, 1926). He published a major two-volume study on Rogier van der Weyden in 1930, Roger de la Pasture – van der Weyden. In 1932 Destrée was elected president of the Académie Royale and in addition director of the Classe des Beaux-Arts. With the publication of his monograph, Roger de la Pasture – van der Weyden, Destrée was in the middle of a debate around the identity of Rogier van der Weyden, and of the Master of Flémalle. Destrée held the generally accepted opinion that Rogier van der Weyden was identical with Rogelet de le Pasture (van der Weyden is the Flemish translation of de le Pasture). This meant that Rogier van der Weyden had been the pupil of Robert Campin, the Master of Flémalle. For Destrée, it was important that the art of Van der Weyden, commonly viewed as Flemish, had a strong connection with Tournai, a city in the Walloon part of Belgium, where the artist was born and was apprenticed before moving to Brussels. Destrée’s study was contested by the art collector Émile Renders, who put forward the thesis that Rogier van der Weyden was not identical with Rogelet de le Pasture, and that the works attributed to the Master of Flémalle belonged in fact to Rogier van der Weyden himself in the earlier part of his life. Renders also rejected the idea that early Flemish painting had its roots in the Walloon part of Belgium with the Master of Flémalle. The debate certainly had an antagonistic, nationalist character. The proposed fusion of the Master of Flémalle with Rogier van der Weyden was accepted by several art historians, including Max J. Friedländer and Jacques Lavalleye, but rejected by Georges Nicolas Marie Hulin de Loo, Erwin Panofsky, and others. He is not to be confused with the other “J. Destrée,” the Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History curator, Joseph Destrée, who is no relation.
Selected Bibliography
[complete list :] www.arllfb.be/composition/membres/destrée; L’Oeuvre lithographique de Odilon Redon Brussels: Deman, 1891; Art et socialisme. Brussels: Le Peuple, 1896 ; Notes sur les Primitifs italiens. Sur quelques peintres de Toscane, avec trois reproductions photographiques et trois eaux-fortes de Mme Jules Destrée. Brussels: Dietrich, 1899; Sur quelques peintres des Marches et de l’Ombrie, avec deux eaux-fortes d’Aug. Danse et cinq eaux-fortes de Mme Jules Destrée. Brussels: Dietrich, 1900; Sur quelques peintres de Sienne, avec deux eaux-fortes d’Aug. Danse et cinq eaux-fortes de Mme Jules Destrée, Brussels, 1903; Études sur les arts anciens de Wallonie: conférences à l’Exposition des beaux-arts de Charleroi en 1911. Brussels: Van Oest, 1912; L’énigme du Maître de Flémalle. Liège: Wallonia, 1914; Van der Weyden (Roger de la Pasture). Brussels: Kryn, 1926; Le Maître dit de Flémalle (Robert Campin). Brussels: Kryn, 1926; Roger de la Pasture-van der Weyden. Paris-Brussels: G. van Oest, 1930.
Sources
Renders, Emile. “The Riddle of the Maître de Flémalle” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 54, no 315 (June 1929): 285-305; Renders, Emile. La solution du problème Van der Weyden-Flémalle-Campin. 2 vols. Bruges: Beyaert, 1931; Lavalleye, Jaques. “Le problème Maître de Flémalle-Rogier van der Weyden” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 12,3 (1933): pp. 791-805; De Seyn, Eug. Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique. 1. Brussels: Éditions L’Avenir, 1935, p.362; Hulin de Loo, Georges. “Weyden (Rogier de le Pasture, alias Van Der)” Biographie nationale publiée par l’Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique 27 (1938); Schaeffer, Pierre-Jean. Jules Destrée. Essai biographique. Brussels: Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, 1962; Fontainas, Adrienne and Luc. “Odilon Redon et ses amis belges” in Block, Jane (ed.) Belgium, The Golden Decades 1880-1914. New York: Peter Lang, 1997, pp. 141-179; {obituaries:] Delville, Jean. Annuaire de l’Académie Royale de Belgique 103 (1937) pp. 101-154; Vanzype, Gustave. “Notice sur Jules Destrée” Annuaire Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique 10 (1939), pp. 37-60; Dumont, Georges-Henri. “Jules Destrée” Nouvelle Biographie Nationale 5 Brussels: Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 1999, pp. 117-123.
Art critic, author of monograph on Van der Weyden; lawyer; politician of the socialist party, minister. Destrée was the eldest son of Olivier Destrée (1834-1899), an engineer, and Clémentine-Jeanne Defontaine (1836-1876). He attended high school a
Place Died: Etterbeek, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Home Country/ies: Belgium
Subject Area(s): archaeology
Career(s): curators
Overview
Curator Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History; archaeologist. Destrée attended high school at the Collège de Bellevue in Dinant. He received a BA in philosophy and letters at the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur, Belgium, and he studied law at the Catholic University of Louvain. After a break of several years he returned to Louvain where he enrolled in the Faculty of philosophy and letters. One of his professors, Canon Edmond Reusens (1831-1903) encouraged him to participate in a seminar of archaeology at the University of Bonn in Germany. In 1886 he was appointed deputy curator of the Brussels Musée royal d’antiquités et d’armures, housed in the Porte de Hal. After the transfer of an important part of the collection to the Palais du Cinquantenaire in 1889, Destrée was appointed a curator at this museum, which was named, in 1906, Musées royaux des Arts décoratifs et industriels, and renamed, in 1912, Musées royaux du Cinquantenaire. Destrée was a frequent contributor to the Bulletin des Musées royaux and other periodicals. He was particularly interested in wood sculpture, miniatures, tapestry, ivory, and metal arts. He wrote a study on mediaeval sculpture in the province of Brabant in 1894, Étude sur la sculpture brabançonne au moyen-âge. In 1895, he published his first study on an illuminated Book of Hours, Les heures de Notre-Dame dites de Hennessy, the illumination of which he attributed to Simon Bening (1483-1561) and his assistants, who worked in Bruges in the early sixteenth century. Destrée was actively involved in the exhibition on metal work known as “Dinanderies,” which was held in Dinant in 1903. The production of brass, copper, and bronze art works, to which he dedicated several articles, flourished along the Meuse-river during the middle ages. In 1914 Destrée published an important monograph on the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes. He dedicated it to his wife, Marie Deharveng, who had died in 1912. This study was only superseded by the monograph of Friedrich Winkler in 1964. Destrée retired in 1920. As curator of the tapestry collection he was succeeded by Marthe Crick-Kuntziger A new edition of his study, Les Heures de Notre-Dame dites de Hennesy, appeared in 1923, with facsimile illustrations of the miniatures. It was the first publication of L’Oeuvre nationale pour la reproduction de manuscrits à miniatures de Belgique, founded to promote the study of illuminated manuscripts by using reproductions, in order to protect and preserve the originals. With Pierre Bautier (1881-1962) he co-authored, in 1924, a study on Les Heures dites da Costa, another manuscript of the Ghent-Bruges School. He is not to be confused with the other “J.Destrée,” the art critic and van der Weyden scholar, Jules Destrée, who is no relation.
Selected Bibliography
Étude sur la sculpture brabançonne au moyen-âge. Brussels: Lyon-Claessen, 1894; Les Heures de Notre-Dame dites de Hennesy: étude sur un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. Brussels: Ed. Lyon-Claessen, 1895; Les dinanderies aux expositions de Dinant et de Middelbourg. Brussels: Van Oest, 1905; La Dinanderie sur les bords de la Meuse. Notes et documents. (extrait du compte rendu du Congrès d’archéologie et d’histoire, Dinant 1903); Tapisseries et sculptures bruxelloises à l’Exposition d’art ancien bruxellois organisée à Bruxelles au Cercle artistique et littéraire de juillet à octobre 1905. Brussels: G. van Oest & cie, 1906; and Van den Ven, Paul. Les tapisseries des Musées royaux du Cinquantenaire à Bruxelles. Brussels: Vromant & Co, 1910; Hugo Van der Goes. Brussels: G. van Oest & cie, 1914; Les Heures de Notre-Dame dites de Hennesy. Brussels: M. Lamertin, 1923; and Bautier, Pierre. Les Heures dites Da Costa: manuscrit de l’école ganto-brugeoise, premier tiers du XVIe siècle; étude et description. Brussels: Monnom, 1924; Hugo van der Goes. Brussels, L.-J. Kryn, 1926.
Sources
De Seyn, Eug. Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique. 1. Brussels: Éditions L’Avenir, 1935, p. 362; Lavalleye, Jacques. “Destrée (Joseph)” Biographie nationale publiée par l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 22 (Supplément, 4) Brussels: Établissements Émile Bruylant, 1964, pp. 135-138; Le nouveau dictionnaire des Belges. Brussels: Le Cri, 1992; [obituary:] Capart, Jean and Laurent, Marcel. “Joseph Destrée” Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 3e série, IV (Mai 1932), 50-55.
Curator Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History; archaeologist. Destrée attended high school at the Collège de Bellevue in Dinant. He received a BA in philosophy and letters at the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur, Belgium,
Scholar of Romanesque art. Deshoulières was part of the debate which took nationalistic overtones on the origin of the Romanesque. It had been launched by the American A. Kingsley Porter when he posited that pilgrimage and monastic reform explained the stylistic progress of the Romanesque, eminating not from France, but from Spain. The French academy rejected Porter’s thesis in favor of their regional hierarchy. The attack was led by Paul Deschamps who published the most virulent corrections (Maxwell) to Porter’s evidence. Dechamps was joined by Deshoulières, Charles Dangibeaud and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis who wrote essays attempting to defend the academy’s classification.
Sources
Maxwell, Robert. “Modern Origins of Romanesque Sculpture.” in, Rudolf, Conrad, ed. A Companion to Medieval Art : Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 338-339.
Citation
"Deshoulières, François." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/deshoulieresf/.
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Scholar of Romanesque art. Deshoulières was part of the debate which took nationalistic overtones on the origin of the Romanesque. It had been launched by the American A. Kingsley Porter when he posited that pilgrimage and m
Scholar of Romanesque sculpture and history of fortifications (Crusades). Deschamps was the leader in the nationalistic counter attack to the debate on the origin of the Romanesque. It had been launched by the American A. Kingsley Porter when he posited that pilgrimage and monastic reform explained the stylistic progress of the Romanesque, eminating not from France, but from Spain. The French academy rejected Porter’s thesis in favor of their regional hierarchy. Deschamps led the academy’s objections by publishing the most virulent corrections (Maxwell) to Porter’s evidence. Dechamps was joined by François Deshoulières, Charles Dangibeaud and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis who wrote essays attempting to defend the academy’s classification.
Selected Bibliography
Le Krak des chevaliers. 2 vols. 1934.; La Défense du royaume de Jérusalem. 2 vols. 1939. La Défense du comté de Tripoli et des principautés d’Antioche. 2 vols. 1971.
Sources
Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 488; Maxwell, Robert. “Modern Origins of Romanesque Sculpture.” in, Rudolf, Conrad, ed. A Companion to Medieval Art : Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 338-339.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen
Citation
Lee Sorensen. "Deschamps, Paul." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/deschampsp/.
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Scholar of Romanesque sculpture and history of fortifications (Crusades). Deschamps was the leader in the nationalistic counter attack to the debate on the origin of the Romanesque. It had been launched by the American A. Kingsl
Subject Area(s): biography (general genre) and European
Career(s): art dealers
Overview
Painter and art dealer; wrote extensive biographies of European artists. Descamps was raised and trained in art in Dunkirk. He moved to Antwerp where he studied further and then in Paris with Nicolas Lancret, Nicolas de Largillierre and at the Académie Royale. Descamps moved to Rouen and founded a small studio and school. In 1749 Descamps’s school received the designation Ecole Royale, Gratuite et Académique de Dessin, de Peinture, de Sculpture et d’Architecture on the model of the Académie Royale in Paris. Sometime during this period, Descamps begain dealing in Dutch and Flemish Old Master painting. In 1759, Descamps published Voyage pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant and his La Vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandais (through 1763), both highly popular, the latter appearing in German by 1771. Descamps became a member of the Académie Royale in Paris in 1764 with genre and homey subject paintings similar Greuze, exhibited at the Salon of 1765. In 1767 Descamps wrote a work outlining the importance of drawing schools for art education. The latter book was awarded a prize from the Académie Royale. Most of his paintings are in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dunkirk, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen. Althought Descamps’ writings included many inaccuracies, he described the Netherlandish masters, the van Eyck and others, with personal observations that set him apart from many who ignored this genre. He is considered the first among modern [French] art writers to acknowledge their importance (Ridderbos).
Selected Bibliography
La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois: avec des portraits grave´s en taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages, & des re´flexions sur leurs differe´ntes manieres. 4 vols. Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1753-1763; Sur l’utilité des établissements d’écoles gratuites de dessin. Paris: s.n. (?) 1767; Voyage pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant: avec des re´flexions relativement aux arts & quelques gravures. Paris: Desaint, 1769.
Sources
Rostand, Andre´. “J.-B. Descamps.” Bulletin de la Société des antiquaires de Normandie 43 (1936): 271-290; Angremy, Annie, ed. Diderot et l’art de Boucher à David: les salons 1759-1781. Paris: Hotel de la monnaie/Editions de la Re´union des muse´es nationaux, 1984, p. 170; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 54; Asfour, Amal. Dictionary of Art; Ridderbos, Bernhard. “From Waagen to Friedländer.” in, Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, Research. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005, p. 218.
Citation
"Descamps, Jean-Baptiste." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/descampsj/.
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Painter and art dealer; wrote extensive biographies of European artists. Descamps was raised and trained in art in Dunkirk. He moved to Antwerp where he studied further and then in Paris with Nicolas Lancret, Nicolas de Largillierre and at the Aca
Subject Area(s): German (culture, style, period) and Modern (style or period)
Career(s): art critics
Overview
Lecturer, art critic and art writer of the Weimar Republic. Deri was born in Pressburg, Germany, which is present-day Pozsony, Hungary. He was the son of Ignatz Deutsch (1844-1929), a lawyer and writer, and Therese Pollak (Deutsch). The family changed their surname to “Deri” after a conversion to Christianity from Judaism. After graduating from the Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna in 1897 he studied mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, 1897-1901. In 1901 he switched to art history in nearby Berlin and then Vienna and Halle. In Berlin he studied under Heinrich Wölfflin (Berlin) and Adolph Goldschmidt. He was much attached to the latter scholar and when Goldschmidt took a position in Halle, Deri followed. This intense student group attached to Goldschmidt also included Johannes Sievers. Deri’s 1906 dissertation, written under Goldschmidt was titled Das Rollwerk in der deutschen Ornamentik des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (Scrollwork in 16th and 17th German Ornament). He wrote two articles for the famous art journal Pan in 1911. In 1913 and 1914, Deri lectured at the Mannheim Kunsthalle (under its director Fritz Wichert) as part of an initiative “Akademie für Jedermann“ (The Academy for Everyone). Deri worked a variety of positions the following years in Berlin, in the art dealer Paul Casirer’s gallery, 1916; as an art critic for the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag and also as a lecturer at the Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik (State University of Music), and the Lessing-Volkshochschule (Lessing Adult Education Center). He was also the president of the Deutschen Monistenbundes (German Monist League). His Die Malerei in 19 Jahrhundert Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Darstellung aud psychologischer Grundlage of 1919 went through four editions and his Naturalismus, Idealismus, Expressionismus seven, both before 1926. With the rise to power of the Nazis and anti-semitism, Deri found himself the subject of attacks by Alfred Rosenberg’s “Kamfbund für deutsche Kultur” (Militant League for German Culture), who ridiculed him for being a Jewish-intellectual and dubbing him a “degrading” critic. In 1933, when the so-called Nuremberg Laws (laws against Jews in positions of authority) took effect, Deri was dismissed from his lecturing and critic positions. He emigrate in 1934 to Czechoslovakia where he taught at the Mararyk Volksuniversiät in Brünn. In 1937, he emigrated again to the United States, relocating permanently to Los Angeles.
Deri was an exponent of modernism in Germany writing articles on most of the modern movements. Methodologically he followed Goldschmidt’s social-historical bent. He also embraced psychology as an art historical tool, writing for the periodical, Schaubühne, edited by Sigmund Freud.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Das Rollwerk in der deutschen Ornamentik des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts. Halle, 1905, published, Berlin: Schuster & Bufleb, 1906; Führer durch das Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. Berlin: Neuen freien Volksbühne, 1910; “Die Futuristen.” Pan 2 (1911/12): 817ff.; “Die Kubisten und der Expressionismus.” Pan 2 (1911/12): 872ff. ; “Die absolute Malerei.” Pan 2 (1911/12): 1201ff.; Versuch einer psychologischen Kunstlehre. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1912; Die Malerei in 19 Jahrhundert Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Darstellung aud psychologischer Grundlage. Berlin: Cassirer 1919; Naturalismus, Idealismus, Expressionismus. Leipzig: Seemann, 1919; Die neue Malerei Sechs Voträge. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1921; and Dessoir, Max et al. Einführung in die Kunst der Gegenwart. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1922; Das Bildwerk Eine Anleitung zum Erleben von Werken der Baukunst, Bildhauerei und Malerei. Berlin: Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft, 1924; Die Stilarten der bildenden Kunst im Wandel von zwei Jahrtausenden. Berlin: Bong, 1932.
Sources
Sinsheimer, Hermann and Pallmann, Gerhard. Gelebt im Paradies: Erinnerungen u. Begegnungen. Munich: Pflaum, 1953, pp. 121 ff.; 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. 121-3.
Contributors: Cassandra Klos
Citation
Cassandra Klos. "Deri, Max." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/derim/.
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Lecturer, art critic and art writer of the Weimar Republic. Deri was born in Pressburg, Germany, which is present-day Pozsony, Hungary. He was the son of Ignatz Deutsch (1844-1929), a lawyer and writer, and Therese Pollak (Deutsch). The
