Raymond Koechlin

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Raymond Koechlin, portrayed by Étienne Moreau-Nélaton in 1887

Raymond Koechlin (born July 6, 1860 in Mulhouse , † November 9, 1931 in Paris ) was a French journalist, art historian and art collector.

Life

Raymond Koechlin, the son of the industrialist and politician Alfred Koechlin-Schwartz (1829–1895) and his wife Emma Koechlin-Schwartz (1838–1911), had to leave his hometown in 1872 with his parents. The father was expelled from Alsace after the lost Franco-Prussian War , as he opted for France, and went with his family to Paris via Belfort . There Raymond Koechlin graduated from the Lycée Condorcet and the Collège Sainte-Barbe . From 1880 to 1884 he studied at the diplomacy department of the École libre des sciences politiques in Paris and then went to the Journal des débats . From 1887 to 1902 he was the chief journalist responsible for foreign policy.

On December 22, 1888, Raymond Koechlin married Hélène Bouwens van der Boijen, the daughter of the Dutch architect William Bouwens van der Boijen, in Paris . Koechlin's father died on February 5, 1895 in Antibes . Thanks to the inherited fortune, the son was able to devote himself entirely to science and collecting. His wife Hélène died on June 15, 1895.

From 1891 to 1899, Raymond Koechlin taught the history of diplomacy at the École libre des sciences politiques. In the late summer of 1898 he was a founding member of the Société des amis du Louvre , the friends' association of the Musée du Louvre . The following year he became secretary of the association and in 1911 president of the association.

After the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in the summer of 1911, Raymond Koechlin took part in the investigation. During the war Koechlin was less involved in the Société des amis du Louvre , but more in an aid organization for the care of French soldiers. After the war Koechlin became active again for his Société des amis du Louvre - thanks to their support, the Louvre was able to acquire Courbet's work The artist's studio .

From 1922 until his death, Raymond Koechlin was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Réunion des musées nationaux . Also in 1922, the Société des amis du Louvre - again on Koechlin 's initiative - was able to acquire Manet's portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé for the Louvre.

In 1924 Koechlin published Les ivoires gothiques français, a three-volume basic study of French Gothic ivory work . This corpus, in which he recorded 1,328 ivory works from the 13th to 15th centuries, still forms a basis for research on Gothic ivory carving today . Koechlin is said to have worked on this magnum opus for 25 years .

Raymond Koechlin collected in numerous areas. With his will of October 23, 1931, he bequeathed his art treasures to the French national museums, including:

Honors

Fonts (selection)

  • with Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot : La sculpture à Troyes et dans la Champagne méridionale au seizième siècle; étude sur la transition de l'art gothique à l'italianisme . Armand Colin et Cie, Paris 1900 ( archive.org ).
  • with Ernst Grosse and Raphaël Collin : Illustrated catalog of the important collection of paintings, water colors, pastels, drawings and prints collected by the Japanese connoisseur the late Tadamasa Hayashi of Tokyo, Japan . American Art Association, New York 1913 ( archive.org ).
  • Les ivoires gothiques français, Auguste Picard, Paris 1924, 3 vols. ( Digitized version ).
  • Souvenirs d'un vieil amateur d'art de l'Extrême-Orient. E. Bertrand, Chalon-sur-Saône 1930 ( digitized version ; memoirs).

literature

  • Claude Berlin: Raymond Kœchlin. Présidence de 1911 à 1931 . In: Des mécènes par milliers. A siècle de dons par les amis du Louvre . Paris, Musée du Louvre, 21 avril – 21 juillet 1997. Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-7118-3548-0 , pp. 55–80.

Web links

Commons : Raymond Koechlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barnet, Peter., Detroit Institute of Arts., Walters Art Gallery (ed.): Images in ivory: Precious objects of the Gothic Age . Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Mich. 1997.
  2. ↑ Sherman Loomis, Roger: Review: Les Ivoires Gothiques Français by Raymond Koechlin . In: The Art Bulletin . tape 6 , no. 4 , 1924, pp. 109-112 .
personal data
SURNAME Koechlin, Raymond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kœchlin, Raymond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French journalist, art historian and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Mulhouse
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1931
Place of death Paris