Architect and historian of medieval building, noted for his assertion that Gothic architecture's system of ribbed vaulting was unnecessary for structural reasons. Abraham served as a soldier in World War I. After the war, he worked on the reconstruction of monument destroyed by the war in the north of France. He trained in the architectural studio of Pascal et Recoura at the Ecole des beaux-arts in Paris, graduating in 1920. He further studied at the l'Ecole du Louvre between 1921 and 1924.

Museum department director, print specialist and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1956-1987); established a genre of art-historical research exploring the importance of classical culture to that of the Middle Ages. Adhémar was descended from a distinguished legal family of the French Midi (southern France). His father, a lawyer of the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court), allowed his son to follow scholarship rather than study law.

Italianist art historian; Arasse graduated from the École normale supérieure in 1965 in Classics. He entered the Sorbonne initially studying Italian Renaissance art under André Chastel on St. Bernardino of Siena. He switched to École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) under the direction of Louis Marin.

Medievalist and educator; director of the Société français d'archéologie; and professor of the l'école de Chartes, l'école du Louvre, l'école des Beaux-Arts. Aubert's father was an architect (d. 1891). Aubert attended the Lycée Condorcet and then the École Nationale des Chartes. At the École a thesis on the Cathedral of Senlis under the Romanesque scholar Robert Charles de Lasteyrie du Saillant in 1907. Aubert joined the Department of Prints of the Bibliothèque nationale in 1909, rising to assistant librarian in the department in 1911.

Curator of paintings at the Louvre Museum, 1951-1965; historian of 19^th century French art. Bazin was the son of Charles Bazin and Jeanne Laurence Mounier-Pouthot (Bazin). He studied art history at the Sorbonne with both Henri Focillon and Émile Mâle, where he reached the baccalaureate and licentiate levels. After completing his studies at the Sorbonne, Bazin received a diploma in museology from the école du Louvre. In 1928, he joined the department of drawings at the école des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Art dealer who authored an important biographical dictionary of artists Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs. Following on the inspiration of Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. In 1898, Felix Becker launched an initiative to write a comprehensive dictionary of artists, architects and decorators, the first volume of which appeared in 1907. Bénézit began a similar work in the French language shortly thereafter.

Print and book collector, wrote major inventory of prints.

Modernist art historian and art librarian, professor University of Kansas. Berger studied art history under Heinrich Wölfflin, Adolph Goldschmidt, Georg Vitzthum von Eckstädt and Paul Frankl at the respective universities of Munich, Berlin, Heidelberg and Göttingen. He completed his dissertation under Moritz Geiger in aesthetics at Göttingen in 1925, his topic addressing Wölfflin's methodology.

Author of a pioneering study on medieval southern Italian art; professor of art history. Bertaux attended the Institut Sainte-Croix at Neuilly and the Lycée Condorcet in Paris. At the École normale supérieure, where he was a student from 1888 to 1891, he earned the degree of agrégé de lettres. After his military service he studied the art of the Italian renaissance under Eugène Müntz in Paris. In 1893 he enrolled at the École française de Rome, housed at the Palazzo Farnese.

Critic and historian of French and Italian art; chair in the history of art at the Collège de France (1878); first editor of the Gazette des beaux-arts. Originally trained as an engraver, Blanc began submitting journal articles to Bons Sens and Le Progrès in 1836. Throughout his career, he was politically active, advocating increased government support for the arts. In 1848, Blanc was appointed head of the Bureau des Beaux-Arts.

Architect and architectural historian; first to launch the controversy regarding whether Greek sculpture had been painted during ancient times. Blouet studied architecture under Pierre-Jules-Nicolas Delespine (1756-1825) at the école des Beaux-Arts, Paris in 1817. In 1821 he was awarded the Prix de Rome. In Rome, Blouet worked closely with Antoine Quatremère de Quincy, completing drawings for the restoration of ancient monuments.

Poet, literary critic and historian whose work became representative of the so-called New Art History. Bonnefoy was born to [Marius] élie Bonnefoy (1888-1936), a railroad worker, and Hélène Maury (Bonnefoy) (1889-1972), a teacher. As a child he spent summers at his grandfather's house in the southern France town of Toirac, near the River Lot. His father died when Bonnefoy was just thirteen, affecting the boy deeply. Bonnefoy graduated with honors from the Lycée Descartes in 1941, continuing study at the Université de Poitiers, 1942, in mathematics.

Egyptian archaeologist; discoverer of the Nefertiti bust and expert and Old Kingdom temples. Borchardt was the son of a Jewish Berlin merchant, Hermann Borchardt (1830-1890) and Bertha Levin (Borchardt) (1835-1910). He studied architecture in Berlin between 1883-1887, intent on becoming an architect. He switched to Egyptology, training under the renowned Egyptologist Adolf Erman (1854-1937). In 1895 he joined the department of Egyptian art at the Berlin Museum. Under the auspices of the Prussian Academy of Sciences he traveled to Egypt, excavating Aswan.

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.

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.

French iconographer of medieval sculpture and decorative arts. Cahier studied at the College of Saint-Acheul. He joined the Jesuit order, ordained as priest, in 1824. Cahier lectured at the Jesuit colleges in Paris, Brieg (in the Swiss Canton of Wallis), Turin, and in Belgium at Brugalette. In the pre-photography days, Cahier began "collecting" medieval monuments, noting their location and iconography with the idea of documenting the Christian (i. e., Roman Catholic) faith via art of the middle ages.

French antiquarian; early classifier of ancient works by subject matter. Caylus was born to an old noble family and was exposed to the privileges that aristocratic life offered. He traveled as a boy with the French ambassador to Constantinople and later to Italy and Asia Minor. He spent time in the military as a successful officer, but at the death of Louis XIV in 1715, he resigned his commission to devote himself to art. In 1716, he visited the perilous ancient sites of Smyrna, Ephesos, Colophon and Troad, seldom visited by Europeans.

Archaeologist and head of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Louvre. Charbonneaux served in World War I at the Macedonian front winning a croix de guerre for his bravery. After the war he returned to Greece as a member of the école française d'Athens. His initial publications were in archaeology, the excavations by the French at Delphi. With Fernand Chapouthier (1899-1953) he published the first report on Malia in 1928, reflecting an interest in the pre-classical.

Scholar of the Renaissance; professor of modern art history at the Sorbonne, 1955-1970, and the Collège de France, 1970-1984. Chastel was the son of Adrien Chastel and his wife, née Morin. He attended the école Normale Supérieure between 1933 and 1938. He trained as an art historian under Henri Focillon at the Sorbonne. Around 1934-1935, Chastel read the essay "Dürer's 'Melancholia I,'" a 1923 publication co-authored by Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl.

Architectural historian of ancient civilizations and engineer; Professor at the Polytechnique (Paris). Choisy was the son of an architect. He studied at the École Polytechnique, Paris, from 1861 to 1863 and from 1863 at the École des Ponts et Chaussées, also in Paris. As part of his education, he traveled to Rome and Athens, beginning in 1866 to study classical architectural elements as many students did. His interest was far more sustained by the structure of these ancient monuments than their decorative detail.

French playwright, poet, essayist and art writer. Claudel was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère in the north of France in 1868. His father, Louis Prosper Claudel, was a petit-bourgeois registrar. His mother, Louise-Athanaïse Cerveaux (Claudel) came from a local farming family in Champagne. Claudel’s sister Camille, four years his senior, would go on to achieve widespread acclaim as sculptor. Although the family was Roman Catholic, they were not particularly devout. Claudel was educated privately in Champagne before the family moved to Paris around 1882.

Archaeologist and art historian of ancient Greek sculpture. Collignon studied in Paris at the École normale supérieure beginning in 1868 under Georges Perrot. He was appointed professor of rhetoric in 1872 at Chambery teaching French literature. In 1873 he was made a member of the École française d'Athènes (French School of Athens) under the direction of Albert Dumont. In 1876 he traveled with the Abbe [Louis] Duchesne (1843-1922), the future director of the French School of Rome, to Asia minor making notes and drawings.

Museum curator, professor and art collector. Courajod attended the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris. After his graduation from Law school in 1864, he was trained as an archivist and paleographer at the école des Chartes from 1864 until 1867 where he met, among others, the future founder of art history at the Sorbonne, Henry Lemonnier. He continued his studies at the école des Hautes études. From 1867 until 1874 he served as an employee at the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale, under chief curator Henri Delaborde.

Historian of Italian Renaissance artists; close friend of the Berensons. Cruttwell met the Bernard Berenson and Mary Berenson in England. The Berensons rented two villa apartments in San Domenico, near Fiesole, Italy, in 1894 and Cruttwell agreed to be their housekeeper. She worked closely with Bernard and thanks him in her various art histories for his help. Cruttwell was a fairly open lesbian and among other things, endorsed and perhaps encouraged Mary Berenson's increasing physical size (Mrs.

Metropolitan Museum of Art director, 1977-2008. Montebello was born to Count André Roger Lannes de Montebello (1908-1986) and Germaine Wiener de Croisset (de Montebello) (1913-1975). His family traced its roots back to Jean Lannes, Duc de Montebello, (1769-1809), a Marshall of France under Napoleon. Other relatives are thought to have been models for characters in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, for example the Duchesse de Guermantes and the playwright Bloch. As a boy, his aunt, the Surrealism patron Marie-Laures Noailles (1902-1970) introduced him to Picasso.