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(b Staines, Oct 14, 1874; d nr Raynes Park, Surrey, May 15, 1931).

English archaeologist and collector . He began his study of Classical archaeology at Winchester; his father moved to Rome in 1890, and during holidays they explored the Campagna with the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani. Having read Classics at Christ Church, Oxford (1898), he became the first student at the British School at Rome in 1901 and its director in 1906. His earliest articles, on the topography of the aqueducts and roads of Rome and the Campagna, were later developed into books. Tomassetti listed 323 publications (including excavation reports) by Ashby on the Campagna, many of them pioneering works. Ashby’s studies of 16th-century and later drawings of Roman monuments include his publication (1904, 1913) of the Coner Sketchbook (London, Soane Mus.), while his interest in Renaissance collections of ancient statues enabled him to identify works that had once stood in the Villa d’Este at Tivoli (1908) and led him to produce a bibliographical analysis of the engravings by Giovanni Battista de Cavalieri and his followers (...

(b Florence, Jan 15, 1689; d Rome, June 4, 1775).

Italian historian, collector and writer. His special interests were the literature of Tuscany during the 14th and 15th centuries, medieval and contemporary art, sacred archaeology and ecclesiastical history. As a scholar of art he brought out (in 1730) a new edition of Raffaele Borghini Il riposo … and wrote the Dialoghi sopra le tre arti del disegno, which was published some years later (Lucca, 1754). The artistic theories he expressed in these works owed something to L. A. Muratori and were influenced by a view of works of art as documents of their time. He exalted the classical traditions of Tuscan art in the early and high Renaissance, praised the classicism of the Carracci and bluntly opposed Mannerist and Baroque art. In the Dialoghi he demonstrated a practical interest, unusual for the period, in methods of restoring and conserving artefacts.

Bottari served the Corsini family from 1718, in Florence at first and then in Rome, where he was summoned in ...

(b 1872; d Srinagar, 1955).

English art historian, museum curator, educationalist, painter and collector. In 1899, after a short period of training as an archaeologist in Egypt, Brown went to India, where he served as curator of Lahore Museum and principal of the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. While working in these posts, he was also assistant director of the Delhi Exhibition of 1902–3 (see Delhi, §II), under George Watt. In 1909 he took up employment in Calcutta as principal of the Government School of Art and curator of the art section of the Indian Museum. In 1927 he retired from the Indian Educational Service to take up an appointment as secretary and curator of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta, where he remained until 1947. After this he lived on a houseboat on the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Brown’s earliest publications included a contribution to the catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition and a descriptive guide to the Department of Industrial Art at Lahore Museum in ...

(b Rome, 1808; d Rome, Oct 10, 1880).

Italian collector and archaeologist. He came from a wealthy family of Roman bankers and inherited his passion for archaeology from his grandfather Giampetro Campana (d 1793). As a young man he began to excavate necropolises in Etruria and Antique villas in Latium and Magna Graecia and built up a large collection of antique artefacts through purchases from dealers. Later he acquired a number of works by 14th- and 15th-century painters from Siena, Florence and Venice, as well as by artists from smaller centres of production in Umbria, Romagna, Emilia, Sicily and the Marches. In 1843 and 1845 he bought several pictures from the collection of Joseph Fesch, among them a Sacra conversazione (c. 1500) by Vittore Carpaccio (Avignon, Mus. Petit Pal.). The size and diversity of his collection grew to such an extent that he eventually needed three buildings in which to house it. His own ...

(b Givry, nr Chalon-sur-Saône, Jan 4, 1747; d Paris, April 28, 1825).

French museum director, writer, graphic artist, collector, archaeologist and diplomat. He was the son of a provincial aristocrat. He went to Paris to further his law studies c. 1765 but entered the studio of Noël Hallé. He became Gentleman-in-Ordinary to Louis XV and was appointed keeper of the collection of engraved gems and medals that Mme de Pompadour had left to the King. In 1772 he entered the diplomatic service as attaché to the French embassy at St Petersburg, he was subsequently posted to Stockholm, Geneva (where his disrespectful engraving Repast at Ferney, of 4 July 1775, angered Voltaire) and, from spring 1776, Naples. There he became acquainted with Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador, and made many drawings of his future wife Emma. Denon began to acquire a diverse collection of paintings and engravings as well as antiquities from excavations at Nola, Catania, Agrigento, Pompeii and Herculaneum. He purchased the painting of the ...

(b Lugnano nel Lazio, 1664; d Rome, Feb 1, 1747).

. Italian scholar, archaeologist and antique collector. His studies and his major writings were devoted to ancient art, and were closely linked with the objects he collected throughout his life. These formed an important collection which earned him great fame, but which was dispersed after his death. It contained small objects and rarities including mirrors, graffiti, lead seals, coins, cameos, lockets and tesserae. The most important piece was undoubtedly the famous Ficoroni Cist from Praeneste (c. 325–c. 300 bc; Rome, Villa Giulia; see Etruscan §VI). One of Ficoroni’s most important studies, published in Rome in 1745, was devoted to his native village, identified with the ancient Labicum. Another of his principal works, Le vestigia e rarità di Roma (1744), was also concerned with topographical matters. Ficoroni was elected correspondent of the Academy of Inscriptions and member of the Royal Academies of Paris and London and the Accademia Peloritana of Messina. He founded the Colonia Esquilina degli Inculti....

[Yeh Kung-ch’uozi Yufu, Yuhuhao Xiaan, Juyuan]

(b Panyu, Guangdong Province, 1881; d 1968).

Chinese calligrapher, painter, archaeologist, collector, poet and government official. He was born into a wealthy, scholarly family, received a classical education and as a youth of 16 founded a school in Guangzhou (Canton) and a publishing company in Shanghai; at 17 he enrolled in law school at the Imperial University in Beijing. His studies were interrupted two years later by the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, whereupon Ye moved to Wuchang, Hubei Province, and taught history, geography and modern languages for four years. In 1906 he began his official career as a specialist in railways and communications. After 1911, Ye held various positions in the Republican government and was instrumental in the establishment of Jiaotong University in Shanghai; he also served as director of classics for several years at Peking [Beijing] University. After the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), he gave up his government career and devoted himself to the arts and research, although he continued to serve on educational and cultural committees for the rest of his life. In particular, he became involved in the committee to organize the simplification of Chinese characters. In ...

(b Stockholm, Nov 11, 1882; reg 1950–73; d Hälsingborg, Sept 15, 1973).

Swedish ruler, collector and archaeologist. He was educated at Uppsala University, where he studied history, Nordic archaeology and Egyptology, and in his youth assisted in archaeological expeditions in Sweden, Greece, Italy and Cyprus. In 1907 he began to collect Chinese art and was soon attracted to the early periods, the area in which his collection eventually became pre-eminent. In 1908 he met the foremost scholars and collectors of Chinese art in London and then helped to plan a large exhibition of Chinese art at the Kungliga Akademien för de Fria Konsterna (Royal Academy of Fine Arts), Stockholm, in 1914. The following year he met Erik Nyström, Professor of natural history at Taiyuan University, who purchased items for him in China. His collection was also enriched from 1916 with the help of Orvar Karlbeck, the Swedish railway engineer active in China. Other Chinese pieces were purchased or presented to his collection during his journey to East Asia in ...

(b Kayseri, Turkey, 1872; d 1962).

Archaeologist, collector and dealer of Armenian descent. He excavated in Iran at Sultanabad from 1903 and the medieval city of Rayy from c. 1907 and assembled an outstanding collection of Oriental art, especially Islamic and Persian. He exhibited Islamic ceramics in London in 1911 and works excavated under his supervision were shown in New York in 1914. Major sales of Islamic pieces from his collection, including lacquer doors and tile panels from Isfahan, books and paintings, carpets and ceramics, were held in the 1920s at the Anderson Gallery, New York. In 1929 he acquired at auction the Mughal album of calligraphy and painting that became known as the Kevorkian Album (now divided New York, Met., 55.121.10; Washington, DC, Freer; see also Indian sub-continent, §V, 4(i)(d)). His gifts to museums and universities included Assyrian reliefs to the Brooklyn Museum, New York. His desire to promote American interest in Middle Eastern art and archaeology was continued through the Hagop Kevorkian Fund....

[Karl Anton Leo Ludwig]

(b Vienna, Nov 4, 1848; d Vienna, July 15, 1933).

Polish archaeologist, writer, collector and patron, active in Austria. As an archaeologist his main interest lay in the architectural ruins of the late Roman Empire in Anatolia. In 1884 he organized an expedition of which he later published an account, Stadt Pamphyliens und Pisidiens. Sketches made by Jacek Malczewski (e.g. Warsaw, Royal Castle; mainly watercolours) are also records of the expedition. Lanckoroński and Malczewski later toured Italy and travelled to Munich together. Other artists patronized by Lanckoroński included Antoni Madeyski (1862–1939), Henryk Rodakowski and Hans Makart. During 1888 and 1889 Lanckoroński made a round-the-world voyage and subsequently published a diary of this trip, entitled Rund um die Erde. He brought back to Vienna various works of art, mainly sculptures and textiles. Between 1890 and 1895 a Baroque Revival palace was built for him in Vienna to designs by Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Hellmer (1849–1919). In it Lanckoroński installed paintings, mainly Dutch and French, that he had inherited and Italian paintings he had purchased (e.g. Masaccio’s ...

(b Paris, March 5, 1817; d London, July 5, 1894).

English archaeologist, politician, diplomat, collector and writer. From his boyhood in Florence, where he grew up in the Palazzo Rucellai and knew Seymour Kirkup (1788–1880) and Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864), he was inspired by a love of Italian art and culture. He returned to England at the age of 12 and, unable to go to university, was apprenticed as a solicitor from 1833 to 1839. He continued to pursue his Italian studies informally, however, and contemplated writing a history of Italy. In 1839 he interrupted an overland journey to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to visit ancient archaeological sites in remote and dangerous areas of Turkey, Iraq and Iran, where he copied cuneiform inscriptions and Assyrian reliefs, described in his Early Adventures (1887). From 1842 he was employed in Constantinople (now Istanbul) by Sir Stratford Canning on various diplomatic missions.

In 1845 Layard began his first systematic archaeological work (...

(Ernst Rudolf Georg)

(b Koblenz, July 9, 1925; d Aachen, July 22, 1996).

German collector and patron. In 1945 he studied law at Bonn University and from 1946 to 1950 art history, archaeology, ancient history and philosophy at Mainz University. In 1950 he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Das Menschenbild Picassos als Ausdruck eines generationsmässig bedingten Lebensgefühls. The following year he married Irene Monheim. In his commercial career he began as managing director of the firm of Leonhard Monheim in 1952 and subsequently became chairman of various companies, such as Leonhard Monheim AG and Ludwig Schokolade GmbH, both in Aachen. In 1956 he became a founder-member of the Friends of the Schnütgen-Museum in Cologne; in 1957 he was made president of the Aachen Museumsverein and editor of the Aachener Kunstblätter; in 1972 he became a member of the purchasing commission of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein–Westfalen in Düsseldorf. He was also a member of the council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 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 Kilmarnock, Aug 18, 1835; d Edinburgh, July 3, 1900).

Scottish soldier, archaeologist, diplomat and collector of Iranian art. He was educated at Glasgow University, and in 1855 he obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers. The following year he joined the expedition of Charles Newton to Halikarnassos, which resulted in the discovery of the Mausoleum and the acquisition of its sculptures for the British Museum. In 1860 with E. A. Porcher, Murdoch Smith formed at his own expense an expedition to Cyrene in Libya. From this expedition he returned with Greek sculptures and inscriptions (London, BM). In 1863 he was selected for service on the Iranian section of a proposed telegraph line from Britain to India, and in 1865 he became its director in Tehran, holding that post for the next 20 years. He initiated his collecting activities for the South Kensington (later Victoria and Albert) Museum in 1873 when he offered his services as an agent. From 1873 to 1885...

(b Kyoto, 1876; d Beppu, Ōita Prefect., 1948).

Japanese collector, geographer and Buddhist priest. In 1901, while studying in London, the young Otani became acquainted with Stein, Sir (Marc) Aurel, who had just returned from his first Central Asian expedition, and was inspired to undertake similar excavations. In 1902 Otani and four Japanese assistants set out for Central Asia, where they stayed until 1904, having worked in various sites in Khotan, Kuccha and Turfan (see Astana). A second, smaller expedition was organized in 1908–9 by Otani under the leadership of Zuichō Tachibana and Eizaburō Nomura, who excavated several sites on both the northern and the southern routes of the Silk Route. Finally, a third expedition was launched in 1910; this lasted nearly five years, ending in 1914. Although none of the Otani expeditions was conducted on a genuinely scientific basis, they led to the discovery of a considerable number of artefacts, including clay and terracotta sculptures, fragments of wall paintings, silk objects, as well as numerous manuscripts in Chinese and several Central Asian languages. Today most of the material collected by the Otani expeditions is in three collections; the Lüxun Museum in Liaoning, the National Museum of Korea in Seoul and the National Museum in Tokyo (...

(b London, March 2, 1900; d Beckley, March 8, 1978).

English collector, archaeologist and writer. Trained as an artist, Reitlinger travelled widely, taking part in two Oxford University archaeological expeditions to Iraq in the 1930s. After World War II he wrote three studies on the history of the Nazi period in Germany and many articles on art, both as a scholar and a journalist. His best-known work is the seminal three-volume study of the art market from 1750 to the 1960s. His residence at Woodgate House at Beckley, E. Sussex, was the site of almost legendary social gatherings and housed the major passion in his life, his art collection, which comprised some 2000 pieces, mainly Far Eastern and Islamic ceramics. Although a fire ravaged Woodgate House in February 1978, the collection was spared, and after Reitlinger’s death a few weeks later, it came to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Some of the most important pieces in the collection were published in the catalogue accompanying a memorial exhibition....

(b Dresden, Jan 7, 1847; d Lugano, Aug 25, 1937).

German art historian, collector and dealer. The son of a Lutheran clergyman, he first studied theology at Leipzig but while travelling in Italy in 1869 became interested in early Christian archaeology, in which field he determined to continue. His first publications were on the sources of Byzantine art history and the mosaics of Ravenna. In 1876 he met Giovanni Morelli, whose disciple he became. Their lengthy correspondence constitutes an important source for the early history of connoisseurship. Richter published a short biography of Leonardo in 1880, then a series of articles in the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst and finally his edition of the Literary Works of Leonardo (1883), the work that established his reputation as a scholar. This was the first scholarly edition of Leonardo’s writings, illustrated, moreover, with a selection of mostly authentic drawings at a time when books on Leonardo were normally illustrated by his pupils’ works....

(b Château de Robien, nr Quentin, Nov 4, 1698; d Rennes, June 5, 1756).

French lawyer, archaeologist, collector and writer. His attempt to create a Breton Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres was thwarted by King Louis XV, but Robien continued to organize excavations and collect information and in 1756 completed a Description historique et topographique de l’Ancienne Armorique ou Petite Bretagne … (Rennes, Bib. Mun.). In his hôtel in Rennes, Robien formed a collection of c. 3800 antiquities and natural history specimens unique in Brittany and famous throughout Europe. His library contained prints and more than 1000 drawings, several acquired in 1741 from the Crozat estate. Most notable among them were an Italian series comprising works by Giovanni Bellini, Botticelli, Leonardo and Pontormo, and examples from the French school of the 16th to 18th centuries (e.g. Nicolas Lagneau, Jacques Bellange, Simon Vouet, Eustache Le Sueur, Antoine Watteau, François Lemoyne) and such north Europeans as Bernard van Orley (see Orley, Bernard van), Rubens and Rembrandt. Flemish taste dominated his collection of paintings (98 works preserved); it was erratic in quality and contained several copies. After his death, his son ...

(b Berlin, June 22, 1865; d Neubabelsberg, June 1945).

German archaeologist, art historian and collector. He travelled to the Middle East and met Carl Humann, who was excavating Pergamon and advised Sarre to study the monuments of medieval Anatolia. In 1895 he visited Phrygia, Lycaonia and Pisidia and in 1896 went on a longer journey in Asia Minor. His principal aim was to discover architectural monuments and archaeological sites; he always travelled with a trained architect and became a talented photographer. He also collected epigraphic material which he sent to such Arabists as Bernhard Moritz, Eugen Mittwoch and Max van Berchem. In the years 1897 to 1900 Sarre travelled to Iran. Objects from his collection were exhibited in Berlin (1899) and at the Exposition des arts musulmans (Paris, 1903). In 1905 he met Ernst Herzfeld, and in 1907–8 they travelled together from Istanbul via Aleppo and Baghdad to the Gulf to find an Islamic site suitable for excavation. Their choice, which Herzfeld later described as Sarre’s, fell upon ...

(b Barnet, Herts, 1732; d Ridge, March 19, 1799).

English diplomat, antiquary and collector. After graduating from Cambridge in 1753, he travelled to southern France and Italy, where he pursued interests in archaeology and science. In 1766 he was admitted a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. His archaeological tours of southern Wales in 1768 and northern Italy in 1771 led to several publications, including ‘An Account of Some Remains of Roman and Other Antiquities in and Near the Town of Brecknock’ (Archaeologia, i); ‘Account of Some Antient Roman Inscriptions Lately Discovered in the Provinces of Istria and Dalmatia’ (Archaeologia, iii); and ‘Origin of Natural Paper found near Cortona in Tuscany’ (Philos. Trans., lix). In November 1773 he accepted the appointment of British Resident at Venice.

In Venice, Strange met the Venetian art dealer Giovanni Maria Sasso, with whom he maintained a friendship and business partnership for 20 years. Their extensive correspondence, now in the Epistolario Moschini, Biblioteca Correr, Venice, documents their involvement in the Venetian art market of the 18th century. Through his own art dealings and with the assistance of Sasso, Strange amassed a collection of 436 paintings, which was privately auctioned on his death by ‘Mr Wilson of the European Museum’. The collection, which reflected an appreciation for the richness of Venetian painting, contained works by Old Masters as well as moderns. ...