BÉNISTI (Monié-Bénisti, also Bénisti-Monié, née Sarfati), Mireille. Algier 10.10.1909 — 11.12. 1993. French Art Historian (Buddhist and Khmer Art). Born in Algeria came early to Paris. Suffered of ill health, but in November 1943 she joined the Comité Français de la Liberation Nationale in Algier, and worked after the war…
BASTIAN, Philipp Wilhelm Adolf. Bremen 26.6.1826 — Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 2.2.1905. Catholic German Anthropologist, Psychologist, and Traveller, a pioneer of South-east Asian studies. Born in a merchant family, son of Hermann Theodor Bassus (1796–1866) and Auguste Krafft. Studied biology and medicine at Berlin, Jena, Würzburg (under Virchow) and Prague (dr. med.…
BARTUS, Theodor. Lassan near Greifswald 30.1.1858 — Berlin 28.1.1941. German, Assistant to the Berlin Ethnological Museum, participated in all four Prussian Turfan expeditions 1902–14. Son of a Pomeranian weaver, he had been a sailor and a squatter in Australian outback, but returned to Germany and, after losing his money in…
BALL, Valentine. Dublin 14.7.1843 — Dublin 15.6.1895. Irish Scientist in India. Son of the naturalist scholar Robert Ball (1802–1857) and Amelia Gresley Hellicar. Educated in Chester and Dublin (Rathmines School), studies at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A. 1864, M.A. 1872, LL.D. 1889). In 1860-64 worked as clerk in Dublin. He then…
BAKTAY, Ervin (Erwin, to 1925 Baktay-Gottesmann). Dunaharaszti 24.6.1890 — Budapest 7.5.1963 (when 73). Hungarian Art Historian. Son of Raoul Gottesmann (d. 1905) and Antonia Levys-Martinfalvy. Originally intended to become a painter, he studied in Munich under Simon Hollósy, whose brother Joszef was one of the first in Hungary to be…
AUBOYER, Jeannine. Paris 6.9.1912 — Sèvres near Paris 6.2.1990. French Indologist (Art Historian). Conservator and Professor in Paris. Daughter of auctioneer Jean Auboyer (1881–1958), studies in Paris mainly at É.P.H.É. (under Pelliot, Przyluski and Mus) and École du Louvre 1929-34 (Hackin, Grousset and Stern), also at Inst. de l’Art et…
ARCHER, William George (“Bill”). 11.2.1907 — Islington, London 6.3.1979. British Ethnologist and Art Historian of India. In India 1931-48, then in Victoria and Albert Museum. Son of William Archer, educated at Strand School. Studied history at Cambridge (Emmanuel College) and aspired for a good position in Whitehall, but poor success…