Classical Art Field Mourns the Loss of a Giant with Thanksgiving Day Passing of Cornelius Vermeule

It is with deep sadness that we report the passing of Cornelius C. Vermeule, 82, who we lost on Thanksgiving Day in Cambridge, MA. 

Cornelius was born August 10, 1925, in New Jersey. From 1953 to 1955 he taught fine arts at the University of Michigan. From there he moved to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of archaeology until 1957 when he was appointed curator of classical collections for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  He married a Bryn Mawr student, Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule that same year.  While at the Museum, he also lectured at Smith College.

Cornelius assumed the directorship of the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1970s. His term as curator was marked by purchase of two large vases portraying the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, a Roman portrait of an old man, and a Minoan gold double ax. He trained several curators including Marion True formerly of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Carlos Picon of the Metropolitan.

"During his forty years as Curator of Classical Art at the MFA, no one did more to promote appreciation of Classical culture than he, or did so in such a lively and engaging way,” said J. Michael Padgett, Curator of Ancient Art at Princeton University Art Museum who worked under Cornelius at the MFA from 1986-1990.

Even in retirement, Cornelius remained extremely active as an author of a detailed series of articles in ancient numismatics for The Celator and occasional articles for Minerva. But for those who knew him, some of his most popular writings were the postcard notes he was fond of sending to friends, former colleagues and ex-students. 

Over the years, I received a number of such postcards, each documenting his generous blend of encyclopedic expertise and irrepressible humor and wit.  Once, in an exchange of letters we were having regarding an important object we had just acquired, I made a number of observations about the Prima Porta Augustus statue in the Vatican and drew parallels to our acquisition.  In his next postcard, Cornelius humbly joked that I knew a lot more about the Prima Porta than he did, then proceeded to make several insightful comments that could only come from someone of his intellect and span of knowledge.  I kept this postcard and every postcard from Cornelius.

Read the obituary in the Boston Globe.

 

Comments

[Corrado]

The biggest smirlaiity that I see between the two ways of decoding and comprehension suggested by Heath and Cornelius would be the sponsorship factor. Cornelius discusses how the decoding and comprehension done by the children of Trackton are initially taught by older siblings and used to help parents. When a younger kids learn to read mailing addresses, they take over the job of delivering the mail from the older kids. When a mother needs something from the grocery store, the younger kids go along with their older siblings and are taught how to decode the prices so that one day they will be able to run to the store on their own. The sponsorship of the older kids and parents to the younger Tracton kids helps the youngsters as well as makes their older siblings and parents by making life easier and more convenient. The slaves in Heath’s piece also rely on sponsorship to learn how to decode and comprehend text. Many of them are taught during church services and some are even taught by their masters. The masters who teach their slaves to read do so primarily for their own benefit—allowing the slaves to learn just enough to help but not too much in order to keep them obedient. Regardless of the master’s intent, the slaves gain a lot from these teachings and pass their learning on to others.The primary difference I see between the decoding and comprehension discussed in the Cornelius and Heath articles is the independence factor. Many of the slaves in Heath’s article buy Webster spellers and teach themselves how to read and write on their own. They may receive help, but they do most of their learning for their own purposes. The Tracton kids, on the other hand, were always taught by someone else and their need to decode and comprehend text was primarily to help others in their community, not for their own goals. The Tracton kids had no inner motivation to learn how to read or write, where as the slaves did so in hopes of one day gaining their freedom.