Florens Deuchler

Choir window of Laon Cathedral , PhD thesis by Florens Deuchler

Detail from The Cloisters Museum , Florens Deuchler's place of work

Entombment and Resurrection of Christ, in the Ingeborg Psalter , the subject of the publication by Florenz Deuchler

Florens Deuchler (born February 23, 1931 in Zurich ; † July 25, 2018 in Aubonne VD ) was a Swiss art historian and medievalist . From 1968 to 1972 he was head of the Medieval Art Department and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art .

Live and act

Deuchler went to high school in Zurich and studied classical archeology and art history in Bern, Paris and Bonn. In 1956 he received his doctorate at the University of Bonn under Herbert von Eine ( The choir windows of the cathedral in Laon. An iconographic and stylistic contribution to knowledge of 13th century stained glass in northern France ). In 1964 he became a private lecturer at the University of Zurich and then went back to Bonn as an assistant to Herbert von Eine.

In 1966 he became an assistant at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and in 1968 director of The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (appointed by its director Thomas Hoving ). At the same time he became professor of medieval art at New York University . In 1972 he became a professor at the University of Geneva . Later he was director of the Istituto Svizzero di Roma and president of the Langmatt Foundation (Sidney and Jenny Brown), which maintains the Villa Brown in Baden. In retirement he moved to Florence .

Florens Deuchler wrote a monograph on Duccio . In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum acquired Madonna and Child, the highest price it had ever paid for a painting . Deuchler did not include this picture in his monograph at the time, but the majority of experts ascribed it to Duccio.

He was married to the art historian Karin Lauke, a specialist in art from 17th century Bologna . Karin Deuchler-Gernsheim was the daughter of the art historian Jutta von Weegmann and the adopted daughter of the art historian Walter Gernsheim .

Fonts (selection)

From beautiful living. A European style lore , Olten; Freiburg im Br .: Walter-Verlag 1961
The Burgundy booty: inventory of booty items from the battles of Grandson, Murten and Nancy in 1476/1477 . Publishing house Stämpfli & Cie, Bern 1963.
Gothic , Stuttgart: Belser 1970 ( Bels style history ; 7)
The Thousand Flower Carpet in Bern: Introduction , Stuttgart: Reclam 1966
Der Ingeborgpsalter , Berlin: de Gruyter 1967
A Short History of Painting from Cave Art to Jackson Pollock , New York: Abrams 1968
The Burgundy Booty (and further chapters), in: The Burgundy Booty and Works of Burgundian Court Art , [catalog of the exhibition 1969]; Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bern 1969, 399 pages, ill.
The Year 1200 , New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art 1970
The Cloisters Apocalypse , New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art 1971
with Marcel Roethlisberger, Hans Lüthy, Lucas Wüthrich: La peinture suisse: du Moyen Âge à l'aube du 20 ^e siècle , Genève: Skira 1975
- English translation: Swiss Painting: from the Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century , New York: Rizzoli 1976
with Jean Wirth, Jean: Alsace: Art Monuments and Museums , Stuttgart: Reclam 1980
as editor: Museums of Switzerland , Zurich: Ex Libris 1981
Duccio , Milano: Electa 1984
The thousand flower carpet from the loot of Burgundy, an image of paradise ; Verlag von Oppersdorf, Zurich 1984, 76 pages, ill .; ISBN 3-85834-007-3 .
with Gisela Bucher-Schmidt: Kunstbetrieb , Disentis: Desertina 1987
Key year 1912: Early modern arts and music as judged by their protagonists , Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner 2003.
Quintilian. Post-ancient traces of the Institutio oratoria speculations about the Libro dell'Arte by Cennini. Notes on Sulzer's theory , Bern: Peter Lang 2017, ISBN 978-3-0343-2675-9 pb.

Web links

Publications by and about Florens Deuchler in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
Literature by and about Florens Deuchler in the catalog of the German National Library
Florens Deuchler in the Dictionary of Art Historians

Individual evidence

↑ Obituary notice

personal data
SURNAME	Deuchler, Florens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss art historian
DATE OF BIRTH	February 23, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH	Zurich
DATE OF DEATH	July 25, 2018
Place of death	Aubonne VD

[1] Obituary notice