This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
The collection consists of drafts of lectures, unpublished essays, and reprints by Brendel primarily on Etruscan art as well as a complete transcript of Symbolism of the Sphere. Notably, the collection also contains a dossier on the Etruscan Diana scuplture forgery purchased by the The City Art Museum of St. Louis in 1953. Brendel was one of the experts declaring the sculpture to be authentic. The sculpture was later delcared to be a forgery most likely created by Alceo Dossena. The dossier on the forgery contains correspondence, photographs, and reports.
1940s-1970
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Source of acquisition--The collection was donated by Maria Weigert Brendel.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Otto Brendel (1901-1973) was an art historian and scholar of Etruscan art and archaeology. He held many academic positions in Europe and the United States, the last of which was as a professor at Columbia University, and he was the author of many fundamental books on ancient art.