Papers of Françoise Henry (d.1982)

Date

1928/1980

Extent

174 items

Location of original

Original items located in UCD Archives.

Repository

UCD Archives

Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive

Repository reference

P182

Language

English ; French

Biographical History

Born in Paris, Françoise Henry studied at the École du Louvre under the great celticist, Henri Hubert. Her first major publication Les Tumulus du Départment de la Côte-d’Or was a comprehensive study of Iron Age burials. She studied Carolingian and medieval art with Emile Mâle and Henri Focillon and it was her interest in medieval art that led her to Ireland and University College Dublin. During a visit to Ireland in the late 1920s she saw the Ahenny Crosses in County Tipperary which perhaps more than anything else attracted her to the study of Irish art. In 1928 she published her first article on Irish art, ‘La chapelle de Cormac à Cashel’.

Her career began in UCD as an exchange lecturer in the Department of French in 1934. By the 1940s she was lecturing in Archaeology and European Art, working on a study of Irish antiquities and accumulating a large collection of illustrations of Irish art, mainly in the form of photographic negatives and prints. Some years later Dr Henri became Director of Studies in Archaeology and the History of European Painting. The nucleus of the History of Art Department (School of Art History and Social Policy) in University College Dublin is to be found in the Purser-Griffith lecture series on European painting which she began in 1934.

She carried out a considerable amount of excavation work at Glendalough, at Iniskea off the Mayo coast, and elsewhere; but she is primarily renowned as a scholar of early Irish art. Her first important publication on the subject was La sculpture irlandaise in 1934. In 1940 she published a major work entitled Irish Art, a study combining manuscripts, sculpture and metalwork in brilliant synthesis. The culmination of her publishing career was the three volume work in French and English which appeared between 1963 and 1970—L’Art irlandais, Irish art in the early Christian period, during the Viking invasions, and in the Romanesque period.

Dr Henry retired from UCD in 1974, the year in which the Book of Kells appeared, reproductions from the manuscript for which she wrote the text. Her final years were spent at her home at Lindry in France where she died in 1982.

Acquisition Information

Collection transferred from the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin which retains a collection of c.20,000 negatives and prints.

Scope and Content

Textual and visual material consisting mainly of notes, drawings and plans, documenting early Christian Irish art, its inspiration and the extent of its influence in Europe, in areas including architecture, sculpture, manuscripts, metalwork, ivory and textiles.

Note

Subjects

Ireland

History

Manuscripts

University College, Dublin

Illuminations

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Related Material

A collection of c.20,000 photographic negatives and prints is held by the UCD School of Archaeology. A further collection of textual material is held by the Royal Irish Academy.

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Record source

Finding aid encoded in EAD by the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) - R.M., 20 July 2009

Finding aid author

Helen Quaggin

I. MANUSCRIPTS

A. Manuscripts in Irish Repositories

B. Manuscripts in British Repositories

C. Manuscripts in Overseas Repositories

D. General

II. IRISH STONE

A. Counties

B. Sites

C. General

III. FOREIGN STONE

A. France

B. Other locations

IV. METALWORK

A. Hanging bowls

B. Croziers

C. Shrines

D. Brooches, pins and latchets

E. Chalices

F. Enamel

G. Other artifacts

H. General

V. PUBLICATIONS

A i. Articles and papers - early Christian art

A ii. Articles and papers - other interests

B. Irish Art/Art Irlandais

C. Other Authors

VI. ART HISTORY

VII. CORRESPONDENCE

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I.   MANUSCRIPTS

II.   IRISH STONE

III.   FOREIGN STONE

IV.   METALWORK

V.   PUBLICATIONS

VI.   ART HISTORY

VII.   CORRESPONDENCE

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