Full Name: Millin de Grandmaison, Aubin-Louis
Gender: male
Date Born: 1759
Date Died: 1818
Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France
Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France
Home Country/ies: France
Subject Area(s): archaeology and Medieval (European)
Overview
Archaeologist and historian of classical and medieval art. Millin was imprisoned in 1793 for completing a study on vandalized churches and monasteries in France. After spending one year in jail, he was hired to teach art history at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, where he also served as the Keeper of the Department of Antiquities. Millin’s scholarship focused on the historical, rather than the aesthetic importance of French churches and castles. He also wrote several articles about Greek vases. In 1806, he published the Dictionnaire des beaux-arts, a work that utilizes French, German, and Italian sources on aesthetics. Millin’s later publications included a translation of James Dallaway’s Anecdotes of the Arts in England, and the Magazin encyclopédique, a collection of information about artists, aesthetics, and artistic practices during the 18th and 19th centuries. Samuel Cauman wrote that Millin continued the “monographic trend” of early art-historical development begun (in France) by Bernard de Montfaucon.
Sources
Cauman, Samuel. The Living Museum: Experiences of an Art Historian and Museum Director, Alexander Dorner. New York: New York University Press, 1958, p. 22; The Dictionary of Art