Eugenie Sellers Strong

Eugénie Sellers Strong, painted by Constance Phillott in 1890 .

Eugénie Sellers Strong (born March 25, 1860 in London ; died September 16, 1943 in Rome ) was a British Classical Archaeologist .

Eugénie Strong was the daughter of the wine merchant Frederick William Sellers and Anna Oates Sellers, who came from a noble family of Périgords in the Dordogne . Eugénie Strong first attended school in Valladolid , Spain , then the convent of the Sisters of Saint Paul in Dourdan, France . After the death of her parents - her mother died in 1871, her father in 1877 - she graduated from Girton College in Cambridge and graduated in Classical Honors Tripos in 1882 . For a short time she was a teacher at St. Leonard's School in St. Andrews , Scotland , before studying Classical Archeology with Charles Thomas Newton at the University of London .

During this time she met some of the most famous British artists of the time - Frederic Leighton , Edward Burne-Jones and Lawrence Alma-Tadema - with whom she developed a close relationship; she also served as a model for the Pre-Raphaelites among them. She was in contact with Lady Ottoline Morrell and knew Gertrude Bell . For a long time, her relationship with the archaeologist Jane Ellen Harrison , whose acquaintance she made in London, when she held advanced courses and lectures on Greek art in the British Museum at the university in 1890/91 was decisive .

In the same year she became the first student at the British School at Rome and published her translation of Carl Schuchhardt's book about Heinrich Schliemann's excavations in Troy into English. She continued her studies in classical archeology in Munich with Adolf Furtwängler and Ludwig Traube . The archaeologist Ludwig Curtius became a lifelong friend during this time. In 1895 she published her translation of Furtwängler's masterpieces of Greek sculpture . In 1897 Sellers married the art historian and librarian Sandford Arthur Strong . Another important translation followed: Franz Wick Hoffs contribution to the Vienna Genesis of Wilhelm August Hartel appeared in 1900 as a novel way: Some of its Principles and Their Application to Early Christian painting .

With her husband's death in 1904, Strong lost her usual financial independence and her health collapsed. Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire , with whom Arthur Strong had been the librarian at Chatsworth House since 1895 , and his wife Luise von Alten offered her to take over her husband's position. Her financial situation calmed down quickly and she held this position from 1904 to 1909. In 1906 she appointed the Imperial German Archaeological Institute as a corresponding member.

With Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine , Strong published her most important work in 1907, which in 1909 brought her to the post of Second Director at the British School at Rome under Thomas Ashby . She held this position until 1925 when the Board of Directors of the British School felt compelled to dismiss Ashby and Strong from their offices in order to save the school's reputation. Power struggles in the background, sparked by Ashby's wife, made this decision necessary. In previous years, the appointment of Strong, who was a good manager of the day-to-day duties of the institute, had certainly enhanced the British School's reputation. Girton College made her a member in 1910. At the Archaeological Institute of America she gave the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures , the proceeds of which appeared in 1915 as Apotheosis and After Life . In 1920 she read the Rhind Lectures at Edinburgh University . In 1927 she became Commander of the Order of the British Empire .

After leaving the British School, she continued her research and publication activities and made two comprehensive contributions to the new edition of the Cambridge Ancient History : The Art of the Roman Republic and The Art of the Augustan Age . In 1928 she also published the two-volume work Art in Ancient Rome .

Eugénie Sellers Strong, who became one of the first female members of the Society of Antiquaries of London , ran one of the most important Roman salons of her time, to which students, scholars and artists were honored to be invited and to listen to the doyenne . Strong received the gold medal of the city of Rome in 1938 for her achievements and spent the time of the Second World War in Rome as an enthusiastic supporter of Benito Mussolini , which - as with many ancient scholars on Roman antiquity - was mainly due to his archaeological commitment . She was buried in the Campo di Verano in Rome. Her relationship with Italian fascism severely damaged her reputation over the years after her death and pushed her academic achievements into the background.

Publications (selection)

Translations

• Schliemann's Excavations: an Archaeological and Historical Study. Macmillan and Co., London 1891 (translation by: Carl Schuchhardt : Schliemanns excavations in Troy, Tiryns, Mykenä, Orchomenos and Ithaka. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1891).
• Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture: a Series of Essays on the History of Art. W. Heinemann, London 1895 (translation by: Adolf Furtwängler : Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture. Art History Studies. Giesecke & Devrient, Leipzig 1893).
• Roman Art: Some of its Principles and their Application to Early Christian Painting. W. Heinemann, London 1900, (partial translation from: Franz Wickhoff , Wilhelm August Hartel : Die Wiener Genesis. F. Tempsky, Vienna and Freytag, Leipzig 1895).
• The Museums and Ruins of Rome. 2nd volumes. Duckworth & Co., London 1912 (partial translation by: Walther Amelung , Heinrich Holtzinger : Rome. Volume 2: The ruins of Rome. Volume 3: The collections of antiquities. Stuttgart 1890).

Monographs

• Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine. Duckworth and Co., London 1907.
• Apotheosis and After Life: three Lectures on Certain Phases of Art and Religion in the Roman Empire. Constable, London 1915.
• Art in Ancient Rome. Ars una: species mille. General History of Art 5, Volume 1: From the Earliest Times to the Principate of Nero. Volume 2: From the Flavian Dynasty to Justinian. Scribner, New York 1928.

literature

• Jocelyn Toynbee in: Antiquaries Journal. Volume 23, 1943, pp. 188-189.
• Gisela MA Richter in: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 48, 1944, pp. 79-81.
• Mary Beard: Mrs. Arthur Strong, Morelli, and the Troopers of Cortés. In: AA Donohue, Mark D. Fullerton (Eds.): Ancient Art and its Historiography. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, pp. 148-170.
• Stephen L. Dyson: Eugenie Sellers Strong: Portrait of an Archaeologist. Duckworth, London 2004.

Web links

• Strong, Eugénie Sellers in the Dictionary of Art Historians.

Remarks

1. ↑ Archäologischer Anzeiger 1907, Col. 63. 98 ( digitized version ).