Edmond François Paul Pottier (13 August 1855,
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...
– 4 July 1934, Paris) was an
art historian
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
and
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
who was instrumental in establishing the
Corpus vasorum antiquorum. He was a pioneering scholar in the study of
Ancient Greek pottery.
He was born in
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...
, Rhineland, the son of a civil engineer he won a place at the
Lycée Condorcet and went on to study at the
École Normale Supérieure and the
École d'Athènes, his thesis was on the subject of the chronology of Athenian
archon
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
s. It was during his tenure as a curator at the
Louvre that he organised the first meeting of the
Union Académique Internationale aimed at establishing the complete corpus of
Greek vases held in the national collections of every nation in 1919, the ''
Corpus vasorum antiquorum''. He produced the first fascicule for the Louvre in 1922.
Under the pseudonym
Jacques Morel his wife was a writer who won the 1912
Prix Femina with the book ''Feuilles mortes''.
Published works
In 1908 his book on the vase painter
Douris, ''Douris et les peintres des vases grecs'', was translated into English and published as "Douris and the painters of Greek vases". Other noteworthy works by Pottier include:
* ''Étude sur les lécythes blancs attiques à représentations funéraires'', 1883 – Study on the white
lekythoi of
Attica.
* ''La nécropole de Myrina: recherches archéologiques exécutées au nom et aux frais de l'École française d'Athènes'', 1887 (with
Salomon Reinach; A. Veyries; École française d'Athènes) – The necropolis at
Myrina: archaeological research performed on behalf of the French School of Athens.
* ''Les Statuettes de terre cuite dans l'antiquité'', 1890 –
Terracotta statuettes of ancient times.
* ''Vases antiques du Louvre'', 2 volumes, 1897-1901 – Antique vases of the Louvre.
* ''Diphilos et les modeleurs de terres cuites grecques'', 1908 – Diphilos and Greek terracotta modelers.
* ''Le dessin chez les grecs d'après les vases peints'', 1926 – Greek design in regards to its painted vases.
* ''L'art hittite'', 2 volumes, 1926-31 – Hittite art.
Most widely held works about Edmond Pottier
WorldCat Identities
References
*Phillippe Rouet:Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases, Beazley and Pottier, Oxford, 2001.
*Medwid, Linda M. The Makers of Classical Archaeology: A Reference Work. New York: Humanity Books, 2000 pp. 247–8.
Scholars of ancient Greek pottery
French art historians
French archaeologists
French classical scholars
Lycée Condorcet alumni
École Normale Supérieure alumni
1855 births
1934 deaths
French male non-fiction writers
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