This marble sign is written in Bulgarian, French and English. The English portion reads:
"Andre Grabar
1896 - 1990
Eminent archaeologist, professor of Byzantine archaeology at the College de France
and at Harvard University, member of the French Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, of the founders of Byzantine art studies in the 20th century
and, author of the first publications on the Church of Boyana and on Byzantine art in Bulgaria."
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"André Nicolaevitch Grabar (July 26, 1896 – October 3, 1990) was an historian of Romanesque art and the art of the Eastern Roman Empire. Born in Ukraine and educated in the Russian Empire, he spent his career in Bulgaria (1919-1922), France (1922-1958) and the USA (1958-1990), and wrote all his papers in French. Grabar was one of the 20th-century founders of the study of the art and icons of the Eastern Roman Empire, adopting a synthetic approach embracing history, theology and interactions with the Islamic world.
His son Oleg Grabar also became an art historian, with a special interest in Islamic art.
Andre Grabar's papers are part of the Dumbarton Oaks collection.
Selected works
L'Eglise de Boiana (1924)
La peinture religieuse en Bulgarie (1928)
Recherche sur les Influences Orientales dans l'Art Balkanique (1928)
La Sainte Face de Laon (1936)
Martyrium (1943, 1946)
La Peinture byzantine (1953)
Byzantine Painting: Historical and Critical Study (1953. Geneva: Skira)
L'Iconoclasme (1957)
Early Medieval Painting from the Fourth to the Eleventh Century: Mosaics and Mural Painting (1957. New York: Skira)
Ampoules de Terre Sainte (Monza, Bobbio) (1958. Paris, C. Klincksieck) (The standard monograph, with 61 photographs and 70 pages of commentary.) (See Leroy review, below.)
Romanesque Painting from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century (1958. New York: Skira)
Byzantine and Early Medieval Painting (1965. New York: Viking Press)
The Beginnings of Christian Art, 200-395 (=Arts of Mankind; 9) (1967. London: Thames & Hudson)
Christian Iconography: a Study of its Origins, A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1961. (1968. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P.)
Leroy, Jules, Review of André Grabar Les Ampoules de Terre Sainte, Syria. Archéologie, Art et histoire, Vol 36, 1959 (in French)"