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(b Berlin, Oct 15, 1827; d Berlin, Sept 15, 1908).

German architect, archaeologist and writer. He was one of the leading figures of Berlin’s architectural establishment in the latter half of the 19th century. On completion of his studies in 1852, he was given the prestigious post of Bauleiter at the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by Friedrich August Stüler. He subsequently became a lecturer and in 1861 a professor of architectural history at the Bauakademie in Berlin. Many of his church buildings used medieval motifs and elements, for example the Christuskirche (1862–8) in Berlin and the Elisabethkirche (1869–72) in Wilhelmshafen. He followed Karl Bötticher in his attempts to merge medieval and classical elements, best illustrated in his design for the Thomaskirche (competition 1862; built 1865–70), Berlin. There, Adler used Gothic structural devices embellished with rich Renaissance detail, a tendency that was also present in many of the entries for the Berlin Cathedral competition (...

[CESCM]

French organization founded in Poitiers in 1953. The Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CECSM) is affiliated with the Université de Poitiers, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. The founders, among them historian Edmond-René Labande and art historian René Crozet, began CESCM as a month-long interdisciplinary study of medieval civilization, inviting foreign students to participate. CESCM has since developed into a permanent organization but maintains the international and interdisciplinary focus of its founders.

CESCM continues to hold its formative summer session, known as ‘Les Semaines d’études médiévales’, and invites advanced graduate students of all nationalities. The summer session spans two weeks and includes sessions on a variety of topics, each conducted by a member or affiliate of CESCM. CESCM supports collaborative research groups and regularly holds colloquia attended by the international scholarly community.

Since 1958 CECSM has published ...

French, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 1855, in Tours; died 1929, in Tours.

Potter, writer, archaeologist.

School of Tours.

Auguste-Alexandre Chauvigné trained with his father Auguste-François, and worked in the same studio. A journalist, novelist, playwright, historian and archeologist, he was a member of the Académie Française and of the Académie d'Agriculture. In ...

[Edhem, Osman HamdiHamdi Bey]

(b Istanbul, Dec 30, 1842; d Eskihisar, Gebze, nr Istanbul, Feb 24, 1910).

Turkish painter, museum director and archaeologist. In 1857 he was sent to Paris, where he stayed for 11 years, training as a painter under Gustave Boulanger and Jean-Léon Gérôme. On returning to Turkey he served in various official positions, including two years in Baghdad as chargé d’affaires, while at the same time continuing to paint. In 1873 he worked on a catalogue of costumes of the Ottoman empire, with photographic illustrations, for the Weltausstellung in Vienna. In 1881 he was appointed director of the Archaeological Museum at the Çinili Köşk, Topkapı Palace, in Istanbul. He persuaded Sultan Abdülhamid II (reg 1876–1909) to issue an order against the traffic in antiquities, which was put into effect in 1883, and he began to direct excavations within the Ottoman empire. As a result he brought together Classical and Islamic objects for the museum in Istanbul, including the Sarcophagus of Alexander, unearthed in Sidon in ...

(b Doylestown, PA, June 24, 1856; d Doylestown, March 9, 1930).

American archaeologist, ethnologist and decorative tile designer and manufacturer. Mercer grew up in a privileged Philadelphia family, and at a young age he began his lifelong love of travel, which would take him eventually throughout Europe, the Middle East and Mexico. These travels would later influence his tile designs for the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. From 1875 to 1879 he attended Harvard University, studying with George Herbert Palmer, Henry Cabot Lodge and Charles Eliot Norton, the latter having a defining influence on the development of his aesthetic sense. From 1880 to 1881 he read law, first with his uncle Peter McCall and then with the firm of Fraley and Hollingsworth, both in Philadelphia, though he never received his law degree. Thereafter, he returned to Europe, becoming interested in archaeology and beginning his lifelong passion for collecting the minutiae and mundane objects of everyday life, becoming one of the first scholars to examine history through a material culture lens....

(b Paris, Jan 3, 1870; d Phnom Penh, Feb 22, 1949).

French architect, art historian and archaeologist. Born into a family of artists, he attended the Lycée de Reims, where he was taught drawing by his father, and in 1891 entered the architectural faculty of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1896 he was employed by the Public Works Office in Tunis, where he learnt about archaeology and published a plan and reconstruction of a temple at nearby Carthage. In 1900 he joined the Mission Archéologique d’Indochine (later known as the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient) to document Siamese historical monuments. His early career was dominated by the discovery, exploration and study of the monuments of the Champa. During 1902–4 he excavated a Buddhist monastery at Dong Duong, a complex of temples at Mi Son and an important temple at Chanh Lo. When he returned on leave to Paris, he married the writer and poet Jeanne Leuba, who took an active part in his later fieldwork, often undertaken in hazardous circumstances at inaccessible sites. He was appointed head of the archaeological service of the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient in ...

(b London, July 28, 1866; d Near Sawrey, Cumbria, Dec 22, 1943).

English painter, draughtsman and writer. A lonely child, she sought solace in botany, zoology, mycology and archaeology, learning to observe and to record. In the 1880s and 1890s she systematically studied fungi, mosses, lichens, fossils and Roman antiquities; her watercolours of these, such as the collection in the National Art Library (London, V&A), combine broad washes with acutely observed detail in elegant compositions. Pets such as rabbits, mice and hedgehogs provided company and inspired stories to entertain her ex-governess’s children. She published The Tale of Peter Rabbit privately in December 1901 (R London, 1902) with her own illustrations. Publication gave her independence from the family wealth. She purchased Hill Top Farm, Near Sawrey (NT), and set her best-loved books in the vicinity (original drawings: Hawkshead, Beatrix Potter Gal.). From 1913 Beatrix Potter was occupied as a sheep farmer.