Léon-Maxime Collignon (8 November 1849 in
Verdun
Verdun ( , ; ; ; official name before 1970: Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city in the Meuse (department), Meuse departments of France, department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department.
In 843, the Treaty of V ...
– 15 October 1917 in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
) was a French
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
who specialized in
ancient Greek art
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic d ...
and
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
.
Biography
From 1868 he studied at the
École normale supérieure
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
in Paris as a student of archaeologist
Georges Perrot
Georges Perrot (12 November 1832 – 30 June 1914) was a French archaeologist.
He taught at the Sorbonne from 1875 and was director of the École Normale Supérieure from 1888 to 1902. In 1874 he was elected to the Academie des Inscriptions ...
. In 1873 he became a member of the
French School at Athens
The French School at Athens (, EfA; ''GallikĂ ScholĂ AthinĂłn'') is one of the seventeen foreign archaeological institutes operating in Athens, Greece.
History
Founded in 1846, the EfA is the oldest foreign institute in Athens. Its early f ...
. In 1876, with
Louis Duchesne
Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (; 13 September 1843 – 21 April 1922) was a French priest, philology, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions.
Life
Descended from a family of Bri ...
, he conducted archaeological research in
Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, about which, he published "''Rapport sur un voyage archéologique en Asie Mineure''". In 1879 he was named professor of Greek antiquities at the
University of Bordeaux
The University of Bordeaux (, ) is a public research university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France.
It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Talence. There are al ...
. In 1883 he returned to Paris as a deputy to Georges Perrot at the Faculty of Arts, where in 1900 he became a full professor of archaeology.
[Collignon, Léon-Maxime](_blank)
Dictionary of Art Historians
In 1893 he became a member of the ''
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres).
History ...
'', of which, in 1904 he was elected as its president. In 1907 while sorting through art objects in a storage room at the museum in
Auxerre
Auxerre ( , , Burgundian language (OĂŻl), Burgundian: ''Auchoirre'') is the capital (Prefectures in France, prefecture) of the Yonne Departments of France, department and the fourth-largest city in the Burgundy historical region southeast of Par ...
, he discovered the so-called "
Lady of Auxerre", a unique statuette dating to the times of
Archaic Greece
Archaic Greece was the period in History of Greece, Greek history lasting from to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical Greece, Classical period. In the archaic period, the ...
. How the sculpture got to Auxerre remains to this day a mystery.
[
]
Published works
His 1883 book on Greek archaeology, "''Manuel d'archéologie grecque''" was translated into English by John Henry Wright and published as "A manual of Greek archæology" (1886). In 1890 Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist. With Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, Harrison is one of the founders of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology. She ...
translated and published Collignon's "''Mythologie figurée de la Grèce''" (1883) as "Manual of mythology in relation to Greek art". He was also the author of writings associated with archaeological digs that he participated in at Pergamon
Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; ), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north s ...
and Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...
.[ The following are some of his principal works in the fields of Greek art and architecture:
* ''Essai sur les monuments grecs et romains relatifs au mythe de PsychĂ©'', 1877 – On Greek and Roman monuments relative to the myth of Psyche.
* ''Phidias'', 1886 – treatise on ]Phidias
Phidias or Pheidias (; , ''Pheidias''; ) was an Ancient Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, active in the 5th century BC. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of ...
.
* ''Histoire de la cĂ©ramique grecque'', 1888 (with Olivier Rayet) – History of Greek ceramics.
* ''Histoire de la sculpture grecque'', 1892-97 (2 volumes) – History of Greek sculpture.
* ''Catalogue des vases peints du MusĂ©e national d'Athènes'', 1902–04, (3 parts, with Louis Couve) – Catalogue of painted vases in the National Museum at Athens.
* ''Scopas et Praxitèle, la sculpture grecque au IVe siècle jusqu'au temps d'Alexandre'', 1907 – Scopas
Scopas (; born in Paros, fl. 4th century BCE) was an ancient Greek sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of Aphrodite, and the head of goddess Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius.
Early life and family
S ...
and Praxiteles
Praxiteles (; ) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture ...
, Greek sculpture of the 4th century up until the time of Alexander
Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here ar ...
.
* ''L'archĂ©ologie grecque'', 1907 – Greek archaeology.
* ''Le ParthĂ©non; l'histoire, l'architecture et la sculpture'', 1911 – The Parthenon
The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of c ...
; its history, architecture and sculpture.
* ''Les statues funĂ©raires dans l'art grec'', 1911 – Funerary statues in Greek art.Most widely held works about Maxime Collignon
WorldCat Identities
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collignon, Maxime
1849 births
1917 deaths
French archaeologists
French art historians
People from Verdun
Academic staff of the University of Paris
Academic staff of the University of Bordeaux