Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style) and Mannerist (Renaissance-Baroque style)
Overview
Scholar of Italian Mannerism, offered a broad definition of Mannerism; influenced by Gustav René Hocke and Max Dvořák.Bousquet’s 1964 Mannerism book drew inspiration from a number of earlier scholars on the subject. Dvořák noted that Manneristic subject matter greatly expanded, a fact Bousquet expanded upon. Bousquet also drew from the camp of Mannerist scholars, principally Hocke, who saw these artists as the precursors to surrealism.
Selected Bibliography
La Peinture maniériste. 1964.
Sources
Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 pp. 190-191; Cheney, Liana De Girolami. “Preface.” Readings in Italian Mannerism. New York: Peter Lang, 1997, p. xxviii.
Citation
"Bousquet, Jacques." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/bousquetj/.
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Scholar of Italian Mannerism, offered a broad definition of Mannerism; influenced by Gustav René Hocke and Max Dvořák.Bousquet’s 1964 Mannerism book drew inspiration from a number of earlier sc
Place Born: Tryon, Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Place Died: Cincinnati, Hamilton, OH, USA
Home Country/ies: Canada
Subject Area(s): Classical
Career(s): educators
Overview
University of Cincinnati professor of classical art history, 1939-1985. After Boulter received his B.A. from Prince of Wales College in 1930, he continued study at Acadia University, 1933, Johns Hopkins University, 1933-1934, and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, 1934-1935. At the American School he studied under Carl. W. Blegen (1887-1971). Excavating Troy at Blegen’s direction, Boulter uncovered a Mycenaean wall and the remains of what Blegen identified as the Scaean Gate; Boulter received full credit for the discovery. Boulter was awarded his Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Cincinnati in 1939 and immediately began teaching there, first as Instructor, 1939-1945, and then as Assistant Professor, 1945-1952. He married Patricia Neils. Boulter was promoted to Associate Professor in 1952. In 1954 Boulter was promoted to Professor, commissing the architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design his Cincinnati home at 1 Rawson Woods Circle, as his father-in-law had done in 1950. He served on the American School of Classical Studies Executive Committee from 1954 to 1959 (and a second time, 1966 to 1973). He spent the academic year 1965-1966 as the Annual Professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Boulter became Chairman of the Taft Faculty Committee at the University in 1961 (through 1972). Beginning in 1974 he served on the Executive Committee of the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), the scholarly dictionary of classical imagery. He was named a Fellow of the Graduate School in 1965. He authored several volumes of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum for midwest collections, the first, for the Cleveland Museum of Art, in 1971. Additional volumes of the CVA for the Toledo Msuem of Art were written with Kurt T. Luckner, the first in 1975. A second Graduate School Fellowship at Cincinnati was awarded in 1972 along with the Charles Phelps Taft Professorship of Classics. He retired emeritus from the university in 1985. After his death, a Cedric G. Boulter Professorship of Classical Archaeology was established at the university. Boulter’s primary interest was in the ceramics of ancient Greece
Selected Bibliography
“The Cleveland Museum of Art.” Corpus vasorum antiquorum. United States fascicules 15, 35. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971; and Luckner, Kurt T. “The Toledo Museum of Art.” Corpus vasorum antiquorum. United States of America, fascicule 17. Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1976; edited, Greek Art, Archaic into Classical: a Symposium Held at the University of Cincinnati April 2-3, 1982. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985.
Sources
Ridgway, Brunhilde Sismondo. “The State of Research on Ancient Art,” Art Bulletin 68 (March 1986): 8, note 8; [obituary:] Luckner, Kurt T. “Cedric Gordon Boulter, 1912-1989.” American Journal of Archaeology 94, no. 3 (July 1990): 481-482.
Citation
"Boulter, C. G.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/boulterc/.
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University of Cincinnati professor of classical art history, 1939-1985. After Boulter received his B.A. from Prince of Wales College in 1930, he continued study at Acadia University, 1933, Johns Hopkins University, 1933-1934, and the American Scho
Place Born: Beure, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France
Home Country/ies: France
Subject Area(s): prints (visual works)
Career(s): curators
Overview
Curator of the Print Room, Bibliothèque nationale. After the death of his father, in 1859, Bouchot’s mother and sister moved with him to Tilleroyes, near Besançon, where he later attended the Collège Saint-François-Xavier. He served in the army during the Franco-Prussian war. In 1874 he was admitted at the École des Chartes, where he obtained the diploma of archivist-paleographer. He began, in 1879, a lifelong career at the Print room of the Bibliothèque nationale, as an intern under Henri Delaborde. His catalog, Les Portraits aux crayons des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale was published in 1884. He rose to deputy librarian in 1885, the year of his marriage to Claire Chevalier. His important overview of the history of the book appeared in 1886. It soon was translated and enlarged by Edward Clements Bigmore (1838?-1899). A new revision was edited by H. Grevel in 1890. With Georges Duplessis (1834-1899), curator of the Print Room since 1885, Bouchot co- authored the Dictionnaire des marques et monogrammes de graveurs (1886-1887). In 1889 his study on the French printmaker Jacques Callot (ca 1593-1635) appeared. In 1892 the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded him the Prix Bordin for his biographical study, Les Clouet et Corneille de Lyon d’après des documents inédits. He rose from librarian to deputy curator of the Print room in 1898, under Duplessis. A year later, in 1899, he was elected associated correspondent member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Besançon. For his active involvement in the Exposition universelle he was awarded the medal of chevalier of the Legion of Honor (1900). He succeeded Duplessis as curator of the Print Room in 1902. Bouchot had a special interest in the origins of early wood engraving. His catalog of 200 incunabula conserved in the Print room appeared in 1903, Les deux cent incunables xylographiques du Département des estampes. The acclaimed exhibition, Les Primitifs français, in the Louvre (Pavillon Marsan) and in the Bibliothèque nationale, organized by Bouchot, was a high point in his career. Its success led to Bouchot’s election as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. An exhibition on eighteenth-century artworks was held in 1906. Bouchot died suddenly in the same year. He was a member of the Société des Antiquaires de France, and the Société d’Émulation du Doubs. The exhibition Les Primitifs français was a patriotic response to the celebrated exhibition Les Primitifs Flamands of 1902 held in Bruges, Belgium. Important research on the Flemish Primitives had been done by William Henry James Weale and Georges Nicolas Marie Hulin de Loo. Bouchot’s concept of a leading French school at the beginnings of the Renaissance was debated among others by Louis Dimier, who also criticized the nationalist character of the exhibition. Even Georges E. Lafenestre, curator of the Louvre, who wrote the introduction to the catalog, warned against stupid exaggerations of patriotic vanity.
Selected Bibliography
Les portraits aux crayons des XVIe et XVIIe siècles conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale (1525-1646) notice, catalogue et appendice. Paris: H. Oudin et cie, 1884; Le Livre. L’illustration – La Reliure. Etude historique sommaire. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1886; and Duplessis, Georges. Dictionnaire des marques et monogrammes de graveurs. Paris: J. Rouam, 1886-1887; Grevel, H. (ed.) The Book: Printers, Illustrators, and Binders, from Gutenberg to the present time, by Henri Bouchot. London: H. Grevel & Co, 1890; Jacques Callot, sa vie, son Åuvre et ses continuateurs. Paris: Hachette et Cie, 1889; Les Clouet et Corneille de Lyon, d’après des documents inédits. Paris: Librairie de l’art, 1892; M. Georges Duplessis, membre de l’Institut, conservateur des estampes à la Bibliothèque nationale, 1834-1899. Paris: Impr. de Lahure, 1899; “A Newly-Discovered Pack of Lyonnese Playing-Cards” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs vol. 1, issue 3 (1903): 297-305; Les deux cents incunables xylographiques du Département des estampes. Origines de la gravure sur bois – les précurseurs – les papiers – les indulgences – les “grandes pieces” des cabinets d’Europe – Catalogue raisonné des estampes sur bois et sur métal du cabinet de Paris. Paris: E. Lévy, 1903; and others: Exposition des Primitifs français au palais du Louvre (Pavillon Marsan) et à la Bibliothèque nationale. Catalogue. Paris: Palais du Louvre et Bibliothèque nationale, 1904; Les Primitifs français: 1292-1500: complément documentaire au catalogue officiel de l’exposition. Paris: Librairie de l’art ancien et moderne, 1904; and La Tour, Henri de. Exposition d’Åuvres d’art du XVIIIe siècle à la Bibliothèque nationale, catalogue: miniatures, gouaches, estampes en couleurs françaises et anglaises 1750-1815, médailles et pierres gravées 1700-1800, biscuits de Sèvres. Paris: E. Levy, 1906; La miniature française 1750-1825. Paris: Goupil & Cie, 1907.
Sources
Prevost, Michel. Dictionnaire de biographie française 6 (1954): 1234-1235; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 374; [obituaries:] Thomas, Antoine and Delaborde, Henri-François. “Henri Bouchot” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 67 (1906): 574-578; “Henri Bouchot” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 10 (1906) no. 44: 96; Gazier, Georges. Henri Bouchot, membre de l’Institut, conservateur des estampes à la Bibliothèque nationale: 26 septembre 1849 – 10 octobre 1906. Besançon: Dodivers et cie, 1907, extract from Mémoires de la Société d’émulation du Doubs (1906); Henri Bouchot, membre de l’Institut, conservateur des estampes à la Bibliothèque nationale (1849-1906): hommage rendu à sa mémoire par ses amis et ses admirateurs: Besançon, 1907; Bourdin, E. “Henri Bouchot de l’Institut 1849-1906. L’Homme et l’ouvre” Procès-verbaux et mémoires Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Besançon (1906).
Curator of the Print Room, Bibliothèque nationale. After the death of his father, in 1859, Bouchot’s mother and sister moved with him to Tilleroyes, near Besançon, where he later attended the Collège Saint-François-Xavier. He served in the army du
Subject Area(s): ancient, Antique, the, Christianity, pre-Christian, and prehistoric
Overview
Historian of pre-Christian art; developed the idea that prehistoric objects could be measured by periods of geologic time in which they were imbedded. Boucher de Perthes was appointed the director of the customhouse at Abbeville in 1825. Like many educated people in the nineteenth century, his hobby was archaeology. He spent his spare time digging in the nearby Somme valley. By 1837, his discoveries included flint hand axes and other tools lodged in the bones of mammals known to be extinct. Boucher de Perthes concluded that the geographic stratum where the artifacts were deposited was the Pleistocene Epoch (or Ice Age, an era more than 10,000 years ago). Boucher de Perthes assumed initially that the tools could be no earlier than the Biblical age of Flood or 4004 B.C. However, the gravel sediment in which the objects had been found indicated that objects had to have been much older. He concluded that the implements were the work of an “Antediluvian Man.” In 1838 he presented these conclusions to the scientific society of Abbeville, who rejected them as inconsistent with religious doctrine. His monograph on primitive toolmaking Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes, beginning in1847 was likewise ignored. Others, particularly Marcel Jerôme Rigollot in nearly St. Acheul in 1853, discovered similar prehistoric implements. When Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species in 1859 Boucher de Perthes’ theories were finally vindicated. Other British scientists, including Charles Lyell, examined Boucher de Perthes’ excavated sites to confirm his hypothesis.
Selected Bibliography
Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes : mémoire sur l’industrie primitive et les arts à leur origine. 3 vols. Paris: Treuttel et Wurtz, Derache, Dumoulin, V. Didron, 1847-64.
Sources
Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 491; “Jacques Boucher de Perthes.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004.
Historian of pre-Christian art; developed the idea that prehistoric objects could be measured by periods of geologic time in which they were imbedded. Boucher de Perthes was appointed the director of the customhouse at Abbeville in 1825. Like many
Subject Area(s): painting (visual works) and sculpture (visual works)
Career(s): art historians
Overview
Wrote a new edition of Il riposo di Raffaele Borghini in cui della pittura e della scultura si favella (1730) of Raffaele Borghini and wrote the Dialoghi sopra le tre arti del disegno, published 1754.
Citation
"Bottari, Giovanni Gaetano." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/bottarig/.
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Wrote a new edition of Il riposo di Raffaele Borghini in cui della pittura e della scultura si favella (1730) of Raffaele Borghini and wrote the Dialoghi sopra le tre arti del disegno, published 1754.
Subject Area(s): ancient, Ancient Greek (culture or style), ceramic ware (visual works), Classical, paintings (visual works), pottery (visual works), Roman (ancient Italian culture or period), and vase
Career(s): curators
Overview
Classicist art historian and vase expert, Metropolitan Museum of Art Curator of Greek and Roman Art. Born to an aristocratic Hanover family, Bothmer worked as a youth for the German-Expressionist artist and sculptor Erich Heckel. His older brother, Bernard von Bothmer joined the Berliner museums in 1932 as an Egyptologist and the younger Bothmer decided on a museum career himself. He studied one year at the Friedrich Wilhelms Universität in Berlin before receiving a Cecil Rhodes Foundation grant to study in Oxford in 1938. In Oxford he met J. D. Beazley with whom he would study. Bothmer received his diploma in 1939 in Classical Studies. He then made an extended visit to the United States, visiting museums and sending information on classical vases to Beazley, who later incorporated it into his subsequent monographs (Attic Black-figure Vase Painters, 1956, and Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, second edition, 1963). He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, 1940-1942, under the classicist and vase scholar H. R. W. Smith. Bothmer was a fellow at the University of Chicago for a year in 1942 before returning to Berkeley to complete his Ph.D. in 1944.
Anti-German sentiment running strong, Bothmer joined the U. S. army though not a citizen, and was assigned to the south Pacific theatre. There he was wounded in action–carrying a fellow soldier several miles through enemy lines–and awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for heroic achievement and U. S. citizenship. He was demobilized in 1945. Bothmer’s brother, who had also come to the United States as curator in Brooklyn, introduced the young Bothmer to curators, among them Gisela M. A. Richter, curator of Greek and Roman objects, who steered him into a postion in her department as a curatorial assistant. Bothmer remained at the Metropolitan the rest of his career. He established himself in the social New York world, joining the soirées of art benefactor Josephine Porter Boardman Crane (1873-1972) among others. He eventually fell into disagreement with the notoriously anti-archaeologist Met director Francis Henry Taylor. In 1959 Bothmer advanced to Curator. The same year he was elected President of the American committee for the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which he held until 1983. In this capacity, he authored two fascicules in the CVA, one for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and another for the Metropolitan. In 1965 he was appointed adjunct professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship the following year. He married the oil heiress (and widow of Marquis Jacques de la Bégassière) Joyce Blaffer (1926-2020), who began making significant donations to the Met. In 1990 Bothmer was awarded the Distinguished Research Curator position at the Metropolitan. The Met named the two principal galleries of Classical pottery the “Bothmer Gallery I” and “Bothmer Gallery II” (financed by his wife) in his honor in 1999. Over the course of his life, he was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities at Oxford, Trier and Emory, named a Chavalier de la Legion d’Honneur and a member of both the Académie française and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI). Bothmer’s brother, Bernard, was an Egyptologist/art historian at New York University.
Bothmer’s career at the Metropolitan was often controversial. He built the Met’s classical pottery collection, including buying sixty-six Greek vases from the Hearst collection in 1956, but his concentration on Greek ceramics was at the neglect of other media, such as sculpture. In 1967, the museum’s financial director, Joseph V. Noble and Bothmer announced that a famous bronze horse acquired in 1923 by the museum was a forgery based upon stylistic grounds and gamma ray testing. The pair made a public announcement and removed the horse from view. However, Carl Bluemel doubted their stylistic findings as did the curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cornelius C. Vermeule III. When more sophisticated technical tests were later performed, the work was proven to be authentic. Bothmer was also accused that his eagerness to secure excellent pieces for the Museum resulted in rewarding unscrupulous dealers and thieves. In one celebrated case, Bothmer persuaded the museum in 1972 to purchase a single vase, a Greek krater decorated by Euphronios, for the (then) unheard of price of $1 million, thought Bothmer suspected it was looted. The Met sold much of its coin collection to pay for the acquisition, outraging museum professionals and archaeologists alike. The murky provenance of the vase led many archaeologists to believe it had recently been illegally excavated from an Italian archaeological site, likely Cerveteri. Though Bothmer and Metropolitan Director Thomas Hoving publicly insisted the pot had lain in pieces in a family collection in Beirut, Hoving later admitted in 1993 that the evidence sited for the Beirut collection was never part of the Met’s Euphronios krater. The krater was repatriated in 2006. Other Bothmer acquisitions that were eventually returned to their country of origin included the Lydian Hoard and the Morgantina Silver as well as his personal collection of vase fragments that he donated to the Metropolitan.
Selected Bibliography
[complete bibliography:] Clark, Andrew J., and Gaunt, Jasper, ed. Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum, 2002, vol. 1, p. 15-26; [dissertation:] Amazons in Greek Art. University of California, Berkeley, 1944; Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943. Fascicule 16, vol. 3; Amazons in Greek Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; An Inquiry into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1961; Greek Vase Painting: an Introduction. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972; and Hoffman, Herbert, and Truitt, Penelope. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1973. Fascicule 1. Attic Black-Figured Amphorae; and Hoving, Thomas. The Chase, the Capture: Collecting at the Metropolitan. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975; The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-century B.C. Athens. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1985; and Moore, Mary B. Attic Black-Figured Pottery. Athenian Agora 23. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1986; Glories of the Past : Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/H. N. Abrams, 1990.
Sources
Denoyelle, Martine. “Biographical Note.” Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson, 2002, vol. 1, p. 14; Denoyelle, Martine, and Gaunt, Jasper. Dietrich von Bothmer: Une bibliographie de ses oeuvres de 1941à 1993; établie en l’honneur de son soixante-quinzième anniversaire. Paris: école du Louvre et le Département des Antiquités grecques, étrusques et romaines du Musée du Louvre, s.d.; http://www.aibl.fr/fr/membres/assoces/bothmer; [Euphronios krate affair:] Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 750; Gross, Michael. Rogues’ Gallery: the Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum. New York: Broadway Books, 2009, pp.248-251, 356-; [personal correspondence, Bernard von Bothmer (son), October 2009]; [obituary:] Grimes, William. “Dietrich von Bothmer, 90, Curator and Scholar, Dies.” New York Times October 16, 2009 pg. B10.
Citation
"Bothmer, Dietrich von." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/bothmerd/.
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Classicist art historian and vase expert, Metropolitan Museum of Art Curator of Greek and Roman Art. Born to an aristocratic Hanover family, Bothmer worked as a youth for the German-Expressionist artist and sculptor Erich Heckel. His older brother
Subject Area(s): Egyptian (ancient), Late Period (Egyptian), and museums (institutions)
Career(s): directors (administrators) and museum directors
Overview
Professor of Egyptian art at New York University and Egyptian Department chairman at the Brooklyn Museum. Bothmer studied Egyptology at the universities of Berlin and Bonn. In 1932 he joined the Egyptian Department of the state museums in Berlin where he remained until 1938. The Anschluss forced Bothmer to leave Nazi Germany because of his beliefs. In the United States, Bothmer initially worked for the War Department in its Office of War Information early in World War II, moving to Army Intelligence in Europe until 1946. After the War, Bothmer joined at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before moving to the Brooklyn Museum in 1956. He married Geraldine Samuelson in 1951 (divorced 1981). In 1960 he accepted a position as professor at New York University. It was Bothmer who was responsible for the museum’s famous 1960 exhibition of Late Period Egyptian sculpture, a seminal exhibition for the study of the art of that era. The catalog, which Bothmer principally authored, is still the basic publication. Bothmer was elevated to curator of the Brooklyn Museum in 1963 and chairman of the department of Egyptian, classical and ancient Middle Eastern art at the Museum from 1979 to 1982. He was named Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art at NYU in 1982. That same year he remarried to Norma Jean Koplin. He continued to teach at NYU until two weeks before his death. He died at age 81 of cancer. His brother, Dietrich von Bothmer, was the eminent Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bothmer was particularly known for his research and writing on the Late Period in ancient Egyptian art. He established a basic chronology for the development of Late Egyptian sculpture based upon a rich first-hand knowledge Egyptian sculpture.
Selected Bibliography
and Holz, Robert K., and Hall, Emma Swan. Mendes I. Cairo: American Research Center in Egypt, 1980; and Meulenaere, Herman de., and MacKay, Pierre A. Mendes II. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1976; and Keith, Jean L. Brief Guide to the Department of Ancient Art. Brooklyn, NY: The Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1970; and Hall, Emma Swan. Antiquities from the Collection of Christos G. Bastis. New York: P. von Zabern, 1987; and Romano, James F. The Luxor Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art: Catalogue. Cairo: American Research Center in Egypt, 1979; Egyptian Art: Selected Writings of Bernard V. Bothmer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003; and Riefstahl, Elizabeth. Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period: 700 B.C. to A.D. 100. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1960.
Sources
Bothmer, Bernard V., and Hall, Emma Swan. Diary 1950: My First Visit to Egypt. Cairo: American Research Center, 2003; Pace, Eric. “Bernard V. Bothmer, 81, Curator And Professor of the Art of Egypt.” New York Times. November 29, 1993, Section D, p.8.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen
Citation
Lee Sorensen. "Bothmer, Bernhard von." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/bothmerb/.
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Professor of Egyptian art at New York University and Egyptian Department chairman at the Brooklyn Museum. Bothmer studied Egyptology at the universities of Berlin and Bonn. In 1932 he joined the Egyptian Department of the state museums in Berlin w
Curator at the Louvre; art collector. Both de Tauzia, commonly known as Tauzia, had a Dutch grandmother, Suzanne-Marie Both, whose name, Both, was added to his father’s family name. An earlier scion of the Both family, Pieter Both, was the first governor of the Dutch East Indies (1610-1614). Tauzia’s father, Pierre-Paul Both de Tauzia (1778-1843) was a royalist in the service of the city of Bordeaux. Between 1828 and 1830 he was administrator of the royal lottery. Tauzia’s mother was Jeanne Fayt. The young Tauzia spent his early youth in Bordeaux. In 1830, the family moved to Paris. Tauzia received his training in the Paris studios of the painters Catrufo and Tourneux, and further initiation in art from the collector L. d’Armaillé (ca. 1822-1882). In 1855 he began his career at the Louvre, as a temporary collaborator for the Exposition Universelle. His assignment was the arrangement of the sculptures. This led to his further involvement in the sculpture exhibitions of the Salons, until 1869. Meanwhile, in 1858, he entered the department of drawings as attaché libre, under Frédéric Reiset (1815-1891). In 1861 he was appointed attaché at that department. In 1863 he was sent to Italy to study the paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries kept in museums and churches. His report of this trip is a pioneering survey on Italian Renaissance art. During a second study trip to Germany and Italy, in 1865, he visited museums and monuments, while researching drawings and paintings. In 1867 he was sent to Milan, to make further arrangements on behalf of the Louvre acquisition of six frescos by Bernardino Luini. Occasionally, Tauzia served at the Salons as secretary of the jury of admissions for the paintings. During the Franco-Prussian War, on September 1, 1870, just a few days before the fall of the Empire, Tauzia was sent to Brest, charged with safe keeping the most precious paintings transferred to Brest from the Paris imperial museums. After his return to Paris in September 1871 he was appointed deputy curator of the department of paintings and drawings. He rose to curator in 1874 as the successor of Reiset. In 1877 Tauzia published the catalog of paintings of the Italian and Spanish schools, which replaced the 1864 catalog by Fédéric Villot. In 1879 he wrote the supplement of the catalog of drawings, continuing the work of Reiset. In that year Tauzia went on a third mission to Italy, in search for acquisitions. During this trip he met important art dealers, as well as his friend Giovanni Morelli. Tauzia succeeded in buying for the Louvre important art works, such as the fresco of the Crucifixion by Fra Angelico, a portrait by Ghirlandajo, and eventually, in 1882, the Villa Lemmi frescos by Botticelli. His friend Charles Ephrussi, who helped to bring over the Botticello frescos from Florence to Paris, published a description in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. In 1881 Tauzia’s critical catalog of the collection of about 300 drawings of Horace His de la Salle (1795-1878), bequeathed to the Louvre in 1878, appeared, Notice des dessins de la collection His de la Salle exposés au Louvre. Between 1881 and 1886, due to museum politics, Tauzia temporarily lost his position as curator of paintings, retaining only the drawings department. In the last years of his life, while he was in poor health, he completed his second supplement of the catalog of drawings (1888), with the editorial help of several of his friends. Ephrussi edited the section of the German masters, while the French masters were assigned to Philippe de Chennevières (1820-1899), director of Beaux-Arts. Tauzia died in the same year. Tauzia was a connoisseur with a sharp eye and an impressive and precise knowledge of paintings and drawings. His catalogs are famous for their exact information and attributions. The reports of his trips to Italy and Germany, written for his superiors at the Louvre, are filled with precious information, in particular on Italian Renaissance art. Tauzia did not publish, however, these handwritten reports, which are kept in the Bibliothèque centrale and Archives des musées nationaux in Paris.
Selected Bibliography
Notice des tableaux exposés dans les galleries du Musée National du Louvre. 1. Écoles d’Italie & d’Espagne. Paris: Charles de Mourgues Frères, 1877; Notice supplémentaire des dessins, cartons, pastels et miniatures des diverses écoles, exposés, depuis 1869 dans les salles du premier étage, au Musée national du Louvre. Paris: C. de Mourgues frères, 1879; Notice des dessins de la collection His de la Salle exposés au Louvre. Paris:. C de Mourgues frères, 1881; Musée national du Louvre. Dessins, cartons, pastels et miniatures des diverses écoles exposés, depuis 1879, dans les salles du premier étage. Deuxième notice supplémentaire. Paris: Librairie des imprimeries réunies, 1888.Rapport sur une mission en Italie addressé à Monsieur le Comte de Nieuwerkerke (1811-1892), Surintendant des Beaux-Arts, décembre 1863. Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux, Paris. 0123-0124; Rapport sur une mission dans les Musées et les Monuments d’Allemagne et d’Italie addressé à Monsieur le Comte de Nieuwerkerke (1811-1892), Sénateur, Surintendant des Beaux-Arts, septembre et octobre 1865. Bibliothèque central des musées nationaux, Paris, Ms. 0125; Rapport sur une Mission en Italie, 1879, addressé à Monsieur Barbet de Jouy, Administrateur des Musées Nationaux. Archives des musées nationaux, Paris, Ms. 030163.
Sources
De Chennevières, Philippe. “Le Vicomte Both de Tauzia” Souvenirs d’un Directeur des Beaux-Arts. Paris: Arthena, 1979, part 5, 3, pp. 34-83, first published in L’Artiste November (1888): 321-341, December (1888): 409-437; Ephrussi, Charles. “Les deux fresques du musée du Louvre attribuées à Sandro Botticelli” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 25 (1882): 475-483; Ephrussi, Charles. Les Nouvelles Acquisitions du musée du Louvre: Fra Angelico, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Sandro Botticelli. Paris : A. Quantin, 1882; Ephrussi, Charles. “Les dessins de la Collection His de la Salle” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 25 (1882): 225-245, 297-309, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 26 (1882): 486-496; Marguillier, Auguste. “Charles Ephrussi” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 34 (1905): 353-360; Anderson, Jaynie. “Giovanni Morelli and the French” in Recht, Roland, Sénéchal, Philippe, Barbillon, Claire, and Martin, François-René (eds) Histoire de l’histoire de l’art en France au XIXe siècle. Paris: La documentation Française, 2008, p. 453-457; [obituary:] Ephrussi, Charles. “Le Vicomte Both de Tauzia” Gazette de Beaux-Arts 38 (1888): 158-160.
Emily Crockett and Monique Daniels. "Both de Tauzia, Pierre-Paul, Vicomte." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/bothdetauzial/.
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Curator at the Louvre; art collector. Both de Tauzia, commonly known as Tauzia, had a Dutch grandmother, Suzanne-Marie Both, whose name, Both, was added to his father’s family name. An earlier scion of the Both family, Pieter Both, was the first g
Subject Area(s): American (North American), anti-modernism, and Modern (style or period)
Career(s): publishers
Overview
Americanist and art magazine editor; infamous for his anti-modernist stance on American art. He was born in Long Island, NY, USA, in Malverne. Boswell’s father Peyton Boswell, Sr. (1879-1936), was an art columnist for the New York Tribune and later founder of the magazine Art Digest. His mother was Bessie Boswell. Boswell attended Rutgers graduating in 1926. The same year, his father founded the journal Art Digest. The younger Boswell worked as a sports journalist in Santa Fe, NM. In 1929 he returned to assumed the assistant art editor position at the Art Digest. After his father’s death in 1936, Peyton succeeded him as editor and publisher. That year he began writing an annual article for the American Encyclopedia on American painting and sculpture. He married Edna E. Marsh. In 1939, Boswell published his Modern American Painting, a survey of American art from 1870 to the 1930s. The book sold nearly a quarter of a million copies, the largest number to date for an art book. Shortly before the start of World War II, Boswell wrote two short biographies of American artists he approved. Peyton was strongly against the emerging abstract painting, who’s style and theory was being espoused through expatriate painters in New York such as Hans Hofmann. In 1940, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art feeling pressure from the nascent Museum of Modern Art to purchase modernist paintings, Boswell suggested only art critics select the works for the museum as a way to ensure that ownership by the Met connoted “the highest badge of honor possible.” After the War, Boswell became one of a number of “populist” art exponents writing against modernism. As anti-Communist sentiment rose in the United States, Boswell believed abstract art to be the impetus of Communism. He was at work on a book outlining this when his heart ailment worsened. He died at his Malvern, NY, home at age 46. Peyton and his father were conspicuous voices in the conservative/populist view of modern art. His father’s review of the 1913 Armory Show in NY included the famous appraisal of Marcel Duchamp’s painting Nude Descending the Stairs as a “cyclone in a shingle factory.”
Selected Bibliography
Modern American Painting. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939; “Buying American Art.” New York Times August 4, 1940, p. 109.
Sources
Marquis, Alice Goldfarb. Art Czar: the Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg: a Biography. Boston: MFA Publications, 2006, p. 113; [obituary:] “P. Boswell, Jr. 46, Art Digest Editor.” New York Times June 24, 1950, p. 13.
Citation
"Boswell, Peyton, Jr.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/boswellp/.
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Search for materials by & about this art historian:
Americanist and art magazine editor; infamous for his anti-modernist stance on American art. He was born in Long Island, NY, USA, in Malverne. Boswell’s father Peyton Boswell, Sr. (1879-1936), was an art columnist for the New York Tribune
