gems, history of gemology, early lapidaries, Fernand de Mély

Fernand de Mély, who died on March 25 last as the result of an accident, was born in 1852 and, while still very young, had occupied himself, under the direction of Anatole de Montaiglon, with the philology, history, and art of the Middle Ages. His communications to the Société nationale des Antiquaires de France, of which he had been elected a resident member on February 4, 1903, the articles he contributed to the Bulletin de l’Académie des Inscriptions and the Monuments Piot, to the Revue de l’art chrétien, the Bulletin monumental, the Revue de l’Art, and the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, show the breadth of the subjects in which he was interested. A great number of these studies are devoted to the treasures of our churches and museums, precious stones and objects of goldsmiths’ work, ivories, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, miniatures; technical, iconographic, and liturgical studies. His tireless activity continually broadened the field of his research, and the liveliness of his mind led him to publish, sometimes even before he had fully exhausted their significance, the hypotheses suggested to him by ancient texts or by the examination of objects. Gradually, his research turned toward miniaturists and the early masters; he endeavored to recover their names and published, in 1913, Volume I, devoted to miniaturists, of a work in which he intended to bring together all his discoveries: Les Primitifs et leurs signatures. As early as 1910, he had published here an important article in which he presented a kind of summary of the book he was then engaged in writing. Ten years later, the Revue archéologique published a second article that supplements the first and provides an overview of his research on our ancient monuments and the artists who worked on them: Nos vieilles cathédrales et leurs maîtres d’œuvre. He had also published in our journal, in 1890, a curious memoir on Les reliques du lait de la Vierge et la galactite. The Académie française had recognized the merit of his persistent labor by awarding him the Prix Jules Janin, and the Académie des Inscriptions the Prix Saintour. Fernand de Mély rests in the small cemetery of Le Mesnil-Germain (Calvados), very near the property to which he so loved to retire for peace and work, and part of which he had given to the City of Paris as early as 1932, with a view to establishing a preventorium for young women fatigued by administrative work.