Henri Lavachery

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Medal, around 1960; Portrait of Lavacherys

Henri Alfred Auguste Ferdinand Lavachery (born May 6, 1885 in Liège , † December 1, 1972 in Ukkel , Brussels) was a Belgian American scholar and ethnologist .

Lavachery was a full member of the Académie royale from 1951 and was head of the Beaux-Arts department from 1969 .

In 1961 the Académie donated the "Prix Henri Lavachery", which is awarded every five years for special merits in ethnology .

Life

Lavachery studied philology and received his doctorate from the University of Brussels in 1908 . After brief employment in industry, he worked at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. In 1928 he founded the Société des Américanistes de Belgique there . From 1933 he was deputy curator of the Royal Museums, from 1943 he was curator.

With the support of Paul Rivet from the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris, he organized the expedition to Easter Island, which ran from July 27, 1934 to January 2, 1935. It was originally directed by the French Louis Charles Watelin , who died before reaching the destination on Tierra del Fuego .

This was the first team of archaeologists who worked scientifically and professionally on Easter Island. Alfred Métraux and a Chilean doctor who was mainly supposed to deal with the island's lepers took part in this expedition, among others .

Apparently there was no or hardly any digging, but a Moai was brought home and, above all, the realization that there must have been more than one other culture before the contemporary islanders. The statue "Pou Hakanononga" is in the Royal Museum in the Jubelpark .

Publications (excerpt)

  • Deux fragments de la statuaire monumentale des Mayas (192?)
  • Les arts anciens d'Amérique au Musée archéologique de Madrid (1929)
  • Inquête sur l'importance and respectively du marché intérieur et du marché extérieur pour l'industrie belge (1933)
  • La mission Franco-Belge dans l'Ile de Pâques (Juillet 1934-Avril 1935) (1935)
  • Contribution à l'étude de l'archéologie de l'île de Pitcairn (1936)
  • Sculpteurs modern de L'Ile de Pâques (1937)
  • Les pétroglyphes de l'île de Pâques (1939)
  • Vie des Polynésiens (1946)
  • Les Amériques avant Colomb (1946)
  • Art précolombien (1947)
  • Tombeau de Georges Marlow (1951)
  • Hypothèse pour une évolution primitive des arts plastiques (1952)
  • Statuaire de l'Afrique noire (1954)
  • Les techniques de protection des biens culturels en cas de conflit armé (1954)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Short biography , Académie royale.
  2. ^ Société des Américanistes de Belgique .
  3. ^ Alfred Métraux: Easter Island. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1957, p. 7.
  4. ↑ according to Heyerdahl
personal data
SURNAME Lavachery, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lavachery, Henri Alfred Auguste Ferdinand (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian old Americanist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Liege
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 1972
Place of death Ukkel , Brussels