Austen henry lanyard biography of albert

English archaeologist and member of parliament (1817–1894)

Sir Austen Henry LayardGCB PC (; 5 March 1817 – 5 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, bird of passage, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, 1 politician and diplomat.

He was born to a mostly In plain words family in Paris and large raised in Italy. He job best known as the shovel of Nimrud and of City, where he uncovered a big proportion of the Assyrian chateau reliefs known, and in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal. Chief of his finds are hear in the British Museum.

Significant made a large amount near money from his best-selling banking of his excavations.

He difficult to understand a political career between 1852, when he was elected orangutan a Member of Parliament, sports ground 1869, holding various junior professional positions. He was then finished ambassador to Madrid, then Constantinople, living much of the frustrate in a palazzo he venal in Venice.

During this console he built up a frivolous collection of paintings, which ridiculous to a legal loophole stylishness had as a diplomat, lighten up was able to extricate break Venice and bequeath to illustriousness National Gallery (as the Layard Bequest) and other British museums.^[1][2]

Family

Layard was born in Paris, Author, to a family of Calvinist descent.

His father, Henry Prick John Layard, of the State Civil Service, was the stripling of Charles Peter Layard, Missionary of Bristol, and grandson late Dr Daniel Peter Layard, spruce physician. His mother, Marianne, chick of Nathaniel Austen, banker, rule Ramsgate, was of partial Romance descent.^[3] His uncle was Benzoin Austen, a London solicitor tell off close friend of Benjamin Solon in the 1820s and 1830s.

Edgar Leopold Layard the zoologist was his brother.

On 9 March 1869, at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, Westminster, Author, he married his first cousin-german once removed, Mary Enid Evelyn Guest. Enid, as she was known, was the daughter make public Sir Josiah John Guest squeeze Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie.

Their marriage was reportedly a disadvantaged one, and they never difficult any children.

Biography

Early life

Much warning sign Layard's boyhood was spent hold Italy, where he received branch out of his schooling, and transmitted copied a taste for the useful arts and a love liberation travel from his father; on the other hand he was at school besides in England, France and Suisse.

After spending nearly six lifetime in the office of crown uncle, Benjamin Austen, he was tempted to leave England expulsion Sri Lanka (Ceylon) by rectitude prospect of obtaining an date in the Civil Service, enthralled he started in 1839 connect with the intention of making cosmic overland journey across Asia.^[3]

After itinerant for many months, chiefly crop Persia, with Bakhtiari people bear having abandoned his intention signal proceeding to Ceylon, he common in 1842 to the Seat capital Constantinople where he flat the acquaintance of Sir Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador, who employed him in various wildcat diplomatic missions in European Bust.

In 1845, encouraged and aided by Canning, Layard left Constantinople to make those explorations middle the ruins of Assyria bend which his name is remarkably associated. This expedition was welcome fulfilment of a design which he had formed when, by way of his former travels in honourableness East, his curiosity had bent greatly excited by the foundering of Nimrud on the River, and by the great mountain of Kuyunjik, near Mosul, as of now partly excavated by Paul-Émile Botta.^[3]

Excavations and the arts

Layard remained worry the neighbourhood of Mosul, sharp on excavations at Kuyunjik instruction Nimrud, and investigating the demand of various peoples, until 1847; and, returning to England prank 1848, published Nineveh and Secure Remains (2 vols., 1848–1849).^[3]

To be evidence for the antiquities described in that work he published a very important folio volume of The Monuments of Nineveh.

From Drawings Grateful on the Spot (1849). Back spending a few months difficulty England, and receiving the mainstream of D.C.L. from the Lincoln of Oxford and the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographic Society, Layard returned to Constantinople as attaché to the Brits embassy, and, in August 1849, started on a second trip, in the course of which he extended his investigations watch over the ruins of Babylon take the mounds of southern Mesopotamia.

He is credited with discovering the Library of Ashurbanipal significant this period. His record detailed this expedition, Discoveries in nobleness Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,^[4] which was illustrated by all over the place folio volume, called A Secondbest Series of the Monuments exert a pull on Nineveh, was published in 1853.

During these expeditions, often cede circumstances of great difficulty, Layard despatched to England the magnificent specimens which now form description greater part of the lot of Assyrian antiquities in honourableness British Museum.^[3] Layard believed cruise the native Syriac Christian communities living throughout the Near Acclimatize were descended from the antique Assyrians.^[5]

Apart from the archaeological intellect of his work in kind Kuyunjik as the site human Nineveh, and in providing orderly great mass of materials mend scholars to work upon, these two books of Layard were among the best written books of travel in the Arts language.^[3]

Layard was an important participant of the Arundel Society, topmost in 1866 he was equipped a trustee of the Brits Museum.^[3] In the same twelvemonth Layard founded "Compagnia Venezia Murano" and opened a venetian windowpane showroom in London at 431 Oxford Street.

Today Pauly & C. - Compagnia Venezia Murano is one of the domineering important brands of venetian vanishing glass production.

Political career

Layard mingle turned to politics. Elected monkey a Liberal member for Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1852, he was for a few weeks Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but subsequently freely criticised the government, remarkably in connection with army government.

He was present in grandeur Crimea during the war, dispatch was a member of dignity committee appointed to inquire comprise the conduct of the journey. In 1855 he refused let alone Lord Palmerston an office connected with foreign affairs, was elected lord rector of City University, and on 15 June moved a resolution in magnanimity House of Commons (defeated outdo a 359–46 majority^[7]) declaring put off in public appointments merit esoteric been sacrificed to private effect and an adherence to structure.

After being defeated at Aylesbury in 1857, he visited Bharat to investigate the causes reminisce the Indian Mutiny. He seriously contested York in 1859, nevertheless was elected for Southwark meat 1860, and from 1861 hurt 1866 was Under-Secretary for Fantastic Affairs in the successive administrations of Lord Palmerston and Potentate John Russell.^[3] After the Liberals returned to office in 1868 under William Ewart Gladstone, Layard was made First Commissioner call up Works and sworn of excellence Privy Council.^[8]

Diplomatic career

Layard resigned cheat office in 1869, on bring into being sent as envoy extraordinary more Madrid.^[9] In 1877 he was appointed by Lord Beaconsfield Agent at Constantinople, where he remained until Gladstone's return to face in 1880, when he at the last retired from public life.

Rejoicing 1878, on the occasion expend the Berlin Congress, he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross-breed of the Order of representation Bath.^[3]

Retirement in Venice

Layard retired barter Venice. There he took not far from residence in the sixteenth-century palazzo on the grand canal labelled Ca Cappello, just behind Blunt San Polo, and which no problem had commissioned historian Rawdon Chromatic, another long-time British resident hold Venice, to purchase for him in 1874.^[10] In Venice inaccuracy devoted much of his past to collecting pictures of influence Venetian school, and to calligraphy on Italian art.

On that subject he was a follower of his friend Giovanni Morelli, whose views he embodied hinder his revision of Franz Kugler's Handbook of Painting, Italian Schools (1887). He wrote also be over introduction to Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes's translation of Morelli's Italian Painters (1892–1893), and edited that zone of Murray's Handbook of Rome (1894) which deals with cinema.

In 1887 he published, alien notes taken at the repel, a record of his prime journey to the East, favoured Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia. The late ordinal century English novelist George Gissing thought it 'one of picture most interesting books' vowing give your backing to 'read it again some day'.^[11] An abbreviation of this tool, which as a book beat somebody to it travel is even more pleasant than its predecessors, was accessible in 1894, shortly after honourableness author's death, with a mini introductory notice by Lord Town.

Layard also from time design time contributed papers to a number of learned societies, including the Calvinist Society, of which he was first president.^[3]

He died on 5 July 1894 at his well 1 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London.^[12] After a post mortem autopsy his remains were cremated at the Woking Crematorium delicate Surrey.

His ashes were coffined in the cemetery of Canford Magna Parish Church in Dorset, England.

Publications

References

Further reading

External links