Sirarpie Der Nersessian (1896-1989). Pioneer of Armenian Art History

chapter 34 

2 

Sirarpie Der Nersessian (1896–1989) 

Pioneer of Armenian Art History 

Dickran Kouymjian 

Sirarpie Der Nersessian was the world’s foremost authority on Armenian art as 

well as a renowned specialist in Byzantine art. It is she who established the principles 

for the study of Armenian manuscript illuminations and developed its methodology. 

She was the discipline’s real pioneer and its most illustrious representative. She 

was a tireless researcher and writer with Wfteen books, one hundred articles, and forty 

reviews; she contributed articles in festschrifts for most of the eminent medieval, 

Byzantine, and Armenian scholars of the twentieth century. 1 

Der Nersessian was born to an upper-middle-class family in Constantinople in 

1896; her father, Mihran, was a well-known printer in the Ottoman capital and her 

mother, Akabi, the sister of Archbishop Maghakia Ormanian, patriarch of Constantinople 

and a distinguished church scholar and historian who lived with the family. 2 

Orphaned at a young age, Der Nersessian and her older sister, Arax, Xed to Bulgaria 

with an aunt—in the wake of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915—and 

then on to Geneva, Switzerland. Her uncle, Archbishop Ormanian, had an enormous 

inXuence on her life, as she so often mentioned, and he inspired her to become a 

historian. As the Armenian patriarch from 1896 to 1908, he was the oYcial leader of 

the entire Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire and answered directly to 

the sultan. In 1910 he went to the Armenian monastery of St James in Jerusalem to 

complete the third and Wnal volume of his massive History of the Armenian Nation. 3 

He returned to Constantinople in 1918 and died the same year after his nieces were 

already settled in Paris. Unfortunately, his death and that of their aunt in the same 

year left the young Der Nersessian girls without resources or relatives except for their 

older brother, Boghos, who stayed in Constantinople. Supporting herself during college, 

very unusual for a woman in those years, Der Nersessian went from the University 

483

484 Sirarpie Der Nersessian (1896–1989) 

of Geneva to the École des hautes études in Paris, where, through her great tenacity, 

she pursued her distinguished academic career. 

Der Nersessian’s teachers were the great Wgures of Byzantine and medieval studies 

of the time. In 1922 she was taken on as an assistant by Gabriel Millet, the renowned 

early Christian and Byzantine art historian, to help organize the world’s foremost 

photographic archive of early Christian and Byzantine archaeology and iconography 

at the École des hautes études, inspiring her gradual drift from history to art history. 

She also studied with such luminaries as Henri Focillion, Charles Diehl, and Emile 

Mâle, the leading scholars in medieval art and art history, as well as with the linguist 

and Armenologist Antoine Meillet. Her main access to Armenian scholarship was 

through the impressive works of her uncle. It was principally with Gabriel Millet that 

her career was shaped toward Byzantine and, secondarily, Armenian art, especially 

manuscript illumination. In 1929, together with Millet, she published her Wrst major 

study on the illustrations of the Armenian Psalter. 4 Five years later, after completing 

a series of long articles on Byzantine miniatures, she returned to Armenian art to 

examine the very beginnings of manuscript illumination in her Wrst English-language 

article, “The Date of the Initial Miniatures of the Etchmiadzin Gospel.” 5 Forty years 

after her Wrst article, she again attacked the study of Byzantine psalm books, this time 

publishing an entire volume devoted to the famous eleventh-century marginal psalter 

in the British Library. 6 One of her two doctoral theses was also on the miniatures of 

Barlaam and Joasaph in the Byzantine tradition. 7 In between there were dozens of 

articles on Byzantine art, including a major study of the tenth-century Menologium 

of Basil I. 8 Her precocious engagement in the interwar period made Der Nersessian 

one of the pioneers in the study of Byzantine illumination, a discipline just beginning 

to establish itself in the broad domain of Byzantine art, then considered a subdiscipline 

of early Christian and medieval art. 

After some years of teaching as an assistant at the École des hautes études, she 

was invited in 1930 to join the art history faculty of Wellesley College near Boston. 

She eventually became chairperson of the art history department and director of the 

university’s Farnsworth Museum. In 1946 she was invited to Dumbarton Oaks, the 

newly established Byzantine center of Harvard University in Washington, D.C., as 

one of its Wrst senior fellows and resident scholar, which reinforced her research in 

Byzantine studies. She held that post as well as that of professor at Harvard University 

until her retirement in 1963, after which she moved back to Paris. 

One must, however, consider her personal specialty as Armenian art, particularly 

the discipline she pioneered, the interrelations of Armenian and Byzantine art, especially 

in manuscript illumination. Already during the war years she gave a series of 

lectures in New York at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in French under the auspices 

of New York University and the École libre des hautes études, the “resistance movement” 

of exiled French intellectuals. These lectures were eventually published in 1945 

by Harvard University Press under the title Armenia and the Byzantine Empire. 

It is tempting to think of Sirarpie Der Nersessian as a feminist before feminism.

I do not think she would have approved of such a description, even though she never 

married and much of her adult life, in the personal realm, was shared with women. 

Motherless at age nine, fatherless at eighteen, she lived with her aunt (1914–18) and 

her sister, Arax, until the latter’s marriage, but the untimely death of her sister’s 

husband in 1947 brought the sisters together again. Arax died a few years before 

Sirarpie after a long illness. The Der Nersessian sisters shared a common house at 

Dumbarton Oaks (1947–63), known afterward as the “Der Nersessian house,” and an 

apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris. Though she was regarded by 

students and even colleagues as an extremely well organized teacher, researcher, and 

administrator, she was also known for her keen sense of humor; for example, during 

a social gathering when she was asked, “Where is your husband, Professor Der Nersessian?” 

she quipped, “I am the husband.” 9 

Though she was a pioneer as a female medievalist, she never made much of it. She 

was the Wrst woman to teach Byzantine art in a woman’s college, the Wrst woman to 

be decorated with the very distinguished medal of Saint Gregory the Illuminator by 

His Holiness Catholicos Vazgen I (1960), the Wrst woman invited to lecture at the 

prestigious Collège de France in Paris, the only woman in her time to gain full professorship 

at Dumbarton Oaks, and the second woman to be honored with a gold 

medal from the Society of Antiquaries of London (1970). 

While teaching in America, she Wnally completed her French doctorate with the 

required two major dissertations, both published in 1936–37: one devoted to Byzantine 

manuscript illumination, L’Illustration du “Roman de Barlaam et Joasaph,” and the other 

to Armenian miniatures, Manuscrits arméniens illustrés des 12e, 13e, et 14e siècles de la Bibliothèque 

des Pères Mekhitharistes de Venise. Each of these books received a special prize. 10 

Thus, Byzantine and Armenian manuscript studies were to be the poles of a career 

extending over six decades. 

Though scholars before her had studied Armenian manuscript art—notably Father 

and later Catholicos Garegin Yovsēp’ian—it was Der Nersessian who established the 

parameters of the discipline and provided a conceptualization of its scope and characteristics. 

She was always known for her sense of organization and order. Because 

she was so Wrmly grounded in Byzantine and European art with a Wne appreciation 

of Islamic painting as well, Der Nersessian was able to demonstrate that Armenian 

art was not just a provincial oVshoot of Byzantine art but a distinct cultural expression 

with its own characteristics. Building on the studies of Yovsēp’ian and always 

using clear language replete with concrete references, she laid out the essentials of 

Armenian iconography, deWned the styles of various periods, reconstructed numerous 

workshops, and revealed the characteristic features of the most proliWc painters. 

This was often done in conjunction with the publication of catalogs of important 

collections of illuminated Armenian manuscripts: the Mekhitarist Library Collection 

in Venice (partial); the Chester Beatty Collection, Dublin; the Freer Gallery of Art, 

Washington, D.C.; the Walters Gallery of Art, Baltimore; the Library of the Armenian 

Prelacy, New Julfa, Isfahan. 11 Dickran Kouymjian 485


Der Nersessian’s early historical training and her excellent command of classical, 

Western, and oriental languages inclined her toward providing at every step of the 

way a textual basis in her art-historical research. The text of manuscripts, especially 

the colophons of scribes and painters, were as important to her as the images. More 

than once she wrote pure history or analyses of liturgical and other texts. Her historical 

scholarship was not only impeccable but also methodologically exemplary and 

always based on primary sources. 

I believe it would be more instructive to trace the way Der Nersessian treated 

some of the problems in her last book as a paradigm of her approach to scholarship 

than to provide an annotated catalog of her important works (see the bibliography). 

For years she spoke to close colleagues about a major study on Cilician Armenian art. 

This last monograph in two volumes, titled Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom 

of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, was issued posthumously in 1993. Her 

Wrst book on Armenian art, published sixty years earlier, was already deeply immersed 

in precisely the same period. During the decades between them, Der Nersessian meticulously 

gathered notes and photographs of the 150 surviving illustrated manuscripts 

and fragments executed by artists working in Cilician Armenia. Many of the major 

monuments she had already analyzed in separate articles or as chapters in books and 

catalogs, including two of the most densely illustrated manuscripts of the most 

distinguished artist of the period, T’oros Roslin. After retiring she worked tirelessly 

on this major opus, but other commitments, the care of her sister, Arax, during the 

very long illness before her death, and, Wnally, her own age delayed its completion 

until the end of her life. She died while reviewing and revising the Wnal manuscript 

with the help of art historian and late disciple Sylvia Agemian. 

Sumptuously printed with 666 black-and-white illustrations and 51 color plates, 

Miniature Painting of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia is a vast chronological investigation 

of the history of Cilician book art. Yet, it has neither introduction nor conclusion. 

Explanation of the massive data and insights or generalities to be derived from them 

are given as the author moves through section after section, discussing artists and 

patrons and schools and monasteries. One suspects it was a matter of time, and none 

was left for such niceties as beginnings and endings or even in some cases, notes. But 

there is continuity throughout, as the story of Cilician illumination moves along from 

decade to decade. Of the six chapters, the last is devoted entirely to portraiture and 

the other Wve to the history of Cilician art from start to Wnish. The Wfth chapter is 

principally about the proliWc artist-scribe Sargis Pidsak and the slow decline in painting 

in the fourteenth century paralleling the gradual diminishing of the power of the 

Armenian kings. 

The initial chapter of the book treats the beginning of Cilician painting in the 

Wrst decades of the twelfth century. Der Nersessian starts by establishing in clear 

terms the necessity to reject received notions based on faulty information: “The general 

picture of the early stages of miniature painting in Cilicia had been distorted 

through the erroneous dating and attribution of the Gospels of the University of

Dickran Kouymjian 487 

Tübingen, MA.XIII.I, supposed to have been illustrated in 1113 at the monastery of 

Drazark. In his publication, Josef Strzygowski had relied on the information provided 

by the dealer. . . . Like many others I had accepted the date and provenance of this 

manuscript. . . . [However] the entire copy of the colophon of the Tübingen Gospels 

is a falsiWcation.” 12 Rather than a Cilician work of 1113, the miniatures show stylistically 

the manuscript and its illustrations to be of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century 

from Greater Armenia to the northeast. Ironically, the Wrst authentic illustrated 

Cilician manuscript is in fact dated 1113 and is a gospel copied at Drazark, a poorly 

executed manuscript by a scribe-artist who had little experience and access only to 

inadequate models. Thus, the illumination is unskilled and the book unconventionally 

laid out. Despite its rudimentary quality, Der Nersessian treats the codex in great 

depth simply because it is the only known illustrated work from Cilicia in the Wrst 

half of the twelfth century. She concludes her analysis judiciously: “[I]n the absence 

of contemporary illustrated manuscripts we have no way of knowing whether or not 

this mediocre work is representative of Cilician miniature painting in the Wrst half of 

the twelfth century.” 13 

With such deliberate caution she moves forward at a steady pace, tying together 

various threads to create a solid fabric, one that reconstructs the relationship between 

scribe, artist, and patron that produced the whole cloth of artistic and intellectual 

life of Armenian Cilicia. The Xowering of the school was in the second half of the 

thirteenth century, but Der Nersessian chooses not to rush to it in order to enhance 

the achievements of the previous century, which made it possible. Each step on the 

way is clear and carefully considered. Alesser scholar might have been tempted to 

signal, in anticipation, what was to come. 

Chapters 1 and 2A, presenting successively the second half of the twelfth and the 

Wrst half of the thirteenth century, could have served as introductory material to the 

brilliance of the following Wfty years. Such an approach held little interest for Sirarpie 

Der Nersessian. In her scholarship there is never exaggeration or sensation. I often 

recall her polite remonstrances toward some of my own more fanciful conjectures on 

the iconography of Armenian Pentecost when I discussed them with her more than 

twenty-Wve years ago and how she guided me quite calmly away from hypotheses that 

she knew would be unproductive, yet without the slightest bit of elevated authority. 14 

Such Wrm yet sober language is at the very core of her method. 

In analyzing the painting in the Armenian kingdom from 1150 to 1250, Der Nersessian 

took into consideration even the artistically least signiWcant works, carefully 

assessing how or why an artist had failed in technique or in iconographic comprehension 

of a scene, but without denigrating an untalented scribe or monk with useless 

adjectives on the poor quality of his art. She just explains carefully, yet with great 

economy, why a painting or an artist’s work falls short or why it is exceptional, always 

providing the source of the artist’s inspiration, the relation of his work to that of the 

entire period and to neighboring scriptoria, and the place of a certain illuminated 

gospel in the context of the artist-scribe’s entire output.


For such a balanced view, Der Nersessian has no equal in Armenian art studies. 

When she speaks of the production of an artist or scribe, she provides as background 

virtually everything there is to know about the person: all manuscripts (illustrated or 

not) copied by the scribe, including lost codices; the period of the artist’s Xourishing; 

the monasteries and teachers who formed his skills; his patrons (in the Cilician 

period almost exclusively aristocratic or upper clergy); and exhaustive bibliographical 

information, often of the most obscure variety. 

Such is the case, for example, of a certain scribe named Kozma, who is responsible 

for four gospels copied on the northern fringes of Cilicia in the Wrst decades of 

the thirteenth century. Der Nersessian creates a persona for Kozma: “We do not 

know where Kozma had been trained. He probably had come to Hromkla (the seat 

of the Catholicos of All Armenians) from Armenia, for the portraits show closer 

aYnities with the miniatures of manuscripts copied in the mother country . . . than 

they do with the elegant style developed in Cilicia.” 15 Yet, she is careful to point out 

that Kozma should not be confused with his namesake, another scribe who is a near 

contemporary. Thus, she is able to bring together four gospel books, which she attributes 

to Kozma on a careful comparison of style, without failing to mention other 

manuscripts, which were by another Kozma. 

Amore striking example of the startling results that Der Nersessian achieves 

through careful scholarship combined with the imagination of a detective concerns 

a group of three undated gospel manuscripts of the late twelfth or the early thirteenth 

century and their relation to one another, otherwise unclear because of disparate 

scenes and iconographic elements in them. Because of her familiarity with all 

periods of Armenian painting, she was able to bring to the discussion a late-sixteenthcentury 

gospel painted at Khizan by a certain Martiros with iconographical elements 

from each of the three manuscripts painted four hundred years earlier, but which the 

three did not share with one another. Her almost understated remarks follow: “One 

of the models used by Martiros of Hizan, directly or indirectly, must have been the 

common prototype of our three Gospels, for it would be a very strange coincidence 

indeed if among the manuscripts to which he had access there happened to be one 

related” to each of the gospels. 16 

Throughout the book Der Nersessian carefully corrects her rare mistakes of the 

past and those of others, never passing judgment on earlier scholarship, just providing 

the reasons why previous opinions were in error and what new data have modi- 

Wed the accepted position. She is also remarkably objective in her judgments, with no 

trace of nationalism of any sort. This is exemplary scholarship for someone who had 

spent an entire life deWning and developing the new Weld of Armenian miniature 

painting. Where others are quick to show that a certain feature is an Armenian “Wrst” 

(but of course this curious sort of chauvinism does not apply only to members of 

small nations), she is content to point out new departures in restrained terms, as 

exempliWed in her description of the fragments of the lost gospel reused as guard 

sheets in a later manuscript:


I have dwelt at some length on the miniatures of the two Xyleaves, because their interest 

transcends the limits of Cilician art, bringing, as they do, a notable contribution 

toward the study of the Stavronikita type of evangelist portraits. Among the East 

Christians, the Armenians appear to have been the only ones interested in these types; 

no corresponding examples are known in Syriac or Coptic Gospels, nor, strangely 

enough, in Georgian manuscripts where the illustrations are remarkably close to the 

Byzantine models. . . . Insofar as the study of Cilician painting is concerned, the miniatures 

of the Xyleaves have a somewhat marginal role. They testify to the skill of the 

painter who faithfully reproduced the Greek model, but . . . are less interesting than 

. . . the Lwów Gospels, which, based also on Greek models, show the translation of 

their style into a diVerent idiom. 17 

A Wnal example will underline her economy of expression—perhaps modesty is a 

better word. In the section devoted to Armenian painting’s most brilliant and famous 

artist, T’oros Roslin (active 1256–68)—the longest part of the book devoted to a single 

individual, about whom Der Nersessian had written over and again—she underlines 

“Roslin’s ability to convey deep emotion without undue emphasis,” which appropriately 

deWnes her own personality. She, too, was for understatement, the idea that 

less is often more. Her most extravagant claims or praise for Cilician art come in this 

chapter. Here is her description of a painting of the descent from the cross: “This 

composition, in which Roslin’s hand can be recognized without hesitation, surpasses 

in artistic quality the contemporary Byzantine examples.” Or for another scene by 

Roslin, she writes, “Christ enthroned between the Virgin and St. John the Baptist— 

a Wgure comparable in its noble grandeur to the Wnest medieval examples—is no 

longer the severe judge but the compassionate Savior.” And for yet another, “The 

compositional design, the delicate modeling of the individual Wgures, and the subtle 

color harmonies show Roslin’s work at its best, equaling in artistic quality some of 

the Wnest Byzantine miniatures.” 18 

Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia is incontestably her magnum 

opus. It is at once a precise and ample study of the period and an encyclopedic 

compendium on Armenian art in general and the history of the medieval Armenian 

kingdom. 

It has been impossible in this context to compare Der Nersessian’s earlier positions 

on Armenian art with corrected or augmented ones in her Wnal study, though an 

example was given earlier concerning the Tübingen Gospels. The specialized iconographic 

or paleographic background necessary to understand each point would have 

required much more space. Rather, I have emphasized her methodology. I do not 

mean to suggest that others before and contemporary to Der Nersessian did not 

uphold the same rigorous standards. But few are the scholars from any period and 

in any discipline who are able to combine such diverse personal resources and 

bring the beneWt of such erudition so gracefully to the exposition of their research. 

Her comments on art are in part so convincing because they are grounded Wrmly on


paleography, codicology, and historical texts, especially colophons. Through these 

scribal annotations she was able to piece together the story of Armenian manuscript 

production, and in this she followed her admired older friend Catholicos Garegin 

Yovsēp’ian, who, in addition to studying Armenian art, also published in 1913 the Wrst 

systematic illustrated survey of Armenian paleography and, at the end of his life in 

1951, the Wrst systematic collection of Armenian manuscript colophons, the latter 

volume a constant companion of Der Nersessian. 19 

Though it is true that few scholars have had the good fortune to actively publish 

into their nineties, it is also true that few of us, given that chance, could lay claim to 

the integrity and thoroughness of Der Nersessian’s labor. Her students at Wellesley 

were in awe of her knowledge, sophistication, generosity, and teaching skills. Because 

of her research post at Dumbarton Oaks, she produced few graduate students, though 

she was always ready to receive young scholars; she answered letters of inquiry promptly 

and amply. She always encouraged newer scholars and helped generously with her 

knowledge and experience. In her last decades in Paris her apartment was always open 

to old colleagues and students. She never refused to invite anyone who needed her 

help for afternoon tea, usually oVering a thick demitasse of Armenian coVee. To the 

end the patter of her quick steps on the parquet Xoors of the avenue de Versailles 

apartment as she came to greet her guests announced the wonderful accepting smile 

that was to greet them as the door opened. She kept up the pace in her nineties and 

even began to indulge herself with an occasional cigarette, a chocolate, and discussions 

of current Armenian and world aVairs. Yet, but for a few close friends, Sirarpie 

Der Nersessian will be remembered for her books and articles, glowing with a timeless 

purity both in method and in the credibility of the data. They will serve as paradigms 

of expression and reWned analysis for generations of future art scholars. 

Notes 

Elements of this chapter were presented at the Thirty-Fifth International Congress of Orientalists, 

Budapest, July 1997, the theme of that year’s congress being distinguished Orientalists 

of the past. Research on Sirarpie Der Nersessian was carried out in part under a grant from 

the Bertha and John Garabedian Charitable Foundation, Fresno, California. 

1. Aselect bibliography is included at the end of this essay. Among the scholar friends she 

honored with essays are Gustave Schlumberger, Nicolas Iorga, Henri Focillon, Paul Peters, 

Henri Grégoire, Bella da Costa Greene, A. M. Friend Jr., Alexander Vasiliev, Robert Pierce 

Casey, George Ostrogorsky, Francis Dvornik, V. N. Lazarev, Otto Demus, Dorothy E. Minor, 

and Haïg Berbérian. Acomplete bibliography of Sirarpie Der Nersessian’s works can be found 

in the following references: Revue des études arméniennes, n.s., 3 (1966): 3–6; Der Nersessian, 

Études byzantines et arméniennes. Byzantine and Armenian Studies, 2:167–70; and Revue des études 

arméniennes, n.s., 21 (1988–89): 8–11. 

2. Details on Der Nersessian’s life and career can be found in the carefully prepared biography 

by Jelisaveta Stanojevich Allen, “Sirarpie Der Nersessian.”Obituaries appeared, inter 

alia, in Mahé and Garsoïan, “Sirarpie Der Nersessian 1896–1989”; J. Allen et al., “Sirarpie Der 

Nersessian 1896–1989”; and a number of Armenian newspapers and scientiWc journals. For her


publications, see note 5 and the bibliography. Anewly published work, the Wrst in a projected 

three volume series, provides the scholar’s systematic archives on Armenian painting with all 

her unpublished notes, as well as a biography lavished with photographs in the form of a 

chronology (Agémian, Archives Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Catalogue). 

3. Ormanean, Azgapatum. 

4. Der Nersessian with Millet, “Le Psautier arménien illustré.” 

5. The articles on Byzantine miniatures are conveniently listed in the bibliography of Sirarpie 

Der Nersessian published on the occasion of her seventieth birthday in Revue des études 

arméniennes, n.s., 3 (1966): 3–6. The bibliography was brought up to date in Der Nersessian, 

Études byzantines et arméniennes. Byzantine and Armenian Studies 2:167–70, and again after her 

death in Revue des études arméniennes, n.s., 21 (1988–89): 8–11. 

6. Der Nersessian, L’Illustration des psautiers grecs. 

7. Der Nersessian, L’Illustration du “Roman de Barlaam et Joasaph.” Der Nersessian, “Illustrations 

of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus.” 

9. J. S. Allen, “Sirarpie Der Nersessian,” 337. 

10. The Wrst volume, Roman de Barlaam et Joasaph, received the Fould Prize of the Académie 

des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, and the second, Manuscrits arméniennes illustrès, 

received the Prize of the Association des Études greques, Paris. 

11. These are listed in the bibliography. 

12. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting, 1. 

13. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting, 3. 

14. Kouymjian, “Problem of the Zoomorphic Figure.” 

15. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting, 3, 11 n. 86, 12. 

16. Ibid., 29 

17. Ibid., 35. 

18. Ibid., 59, 63a, 63b. 

19. Yovsēp’ian, Album of Armenian Paleography For a recent discussion of his paleographic 

insights, see Kouymjian, “Garegin Yovsēp’ian.” Yovsēp’ian’s Colophons of Manuscripts. 

Select Bibliography of Works by Sirarpie Der Nersessian 

“Illustrations de Nicéphore Phocas et de l’épopée Byzantine: Répertoire méthodique.” In 

Mélanges oVerts à Gustave Schlumberger. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1924. 

With Gabriel Millet. “Le Psautier arménien illustré.” Revue des études arméniennes 9 (1929): 

137–81. 

“The Date of the Initial Miniatures of the Etchmiadzin Gospel.” Art Bulletin 15, no. 4 (1933): 

327–60. Reprinted in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 1: 533–58. 

L’Illustration du “Roman de Barlaam et Joasaph.” 2 vols. Paris: Librairie E. de Boccard, 1936–37. 

Manuscrits arméniens illustrès des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe siècles de la Bibliothèque des Pères Mekhitaristes 

de Venise. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie E. de Boccard, 1937. 

“The Direct Approach in the Study of Art History.” College Art Journal 1 (1942): 54–60. 

“Une apologie des images du septième siècle.” Byzantion 14 (1944/45): 58–87. Reprinted in Der 

Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 1: 379–404. 

Armenia and the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947. 

The Chester Beatty Library: A Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts, with an Introduction on the 

History of Armenian Art. 2 vols. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis and Co., 1958.


“The Illustrations of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Paris Gr. 510. AStudy of the Connections 

between Text and Images.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962): 195–228. Reprinted 

in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 77–107. 

“The Kingdom of Cilician Armenia.” In A History of the Crusades, edited by K. M. Setton, vol. 

2, edited by R. L. WolV and H. W. Hazard. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 

1962. Reprinted in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 1: 329–52. 

Armenian Manuscripts in the Freer Gallery of Art. Freer Gallery of Art Oriental Series, 6. Washington, 

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1963. 

“La peinture arménienne au VIIe siècle et les miniatures de l’Évangile d’Etchmiadzin.” In Actes 

du XIIe Congrès international d’etudes byzantines, Ochrid, 10–16 septembre, 1961. Belgrade: n.p., 

1964. Reprinted in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 1: 525–32. 

Aght’amar: Church of the Holy Cross. Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies, 1. Cambridge, Mass.: 

Harvard University Press, 1965. 

“Armenia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.” In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International 

Congress of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, 5–10 September 1966, edited by J. M. Hussey, D. Obolensky, 

and S. Runciman. London: n.p., 1967. Reprinted in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et 

arméniennes, 1:323–27. 

The Armenians. Ancient Peoples and Places. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969. 

L’Illustration des Psautiers grecs du Moyen Âge. II. Londres Add. 19352. Bibliothèque des Cahiers 

Archéologiques, 5. Paris: Éditions Klincksick, 1970. 

Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore: Trustees Walters Art Gallery, 1973. 

Études byzantines et arméniennes, Byzantine and Armenian Studies, (Collection of Sirarpie der 

Nersessian’s essays). 2 vols. Louvain: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation/Peeters, 1973. 

“Le reliquaire de Skévra et l’orfèvrerie cilicienne aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles.” In Revue des etudes 

arméniennes, n.s., 1 (1964): 121–47. Reprinted in Der Nersessian, Études byzantines et arméniennes, 

705–22. 

With Herman Vahramian. Aght’amar (in English, Italian, Armenian). Documenti di Architettura 

Armena, vol. 8. Milan: Edizioni Ares, 1974. 

“Program and Iconography of the Frescoes of the Parecclesion.” In Paul A. Underwood, The 

Kariye Djami, 4: 305–49. New York: Bollingen, 1975. 

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Sirarpie Der Nersessian (1896-1989). Pioneer of Armenian Art History

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