This collaborative project between the Index of Medieval Art and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris digitizes and catalogues part of the photographic holdings of the Collection Gabriel Millet, making it available online for the first time. Established by Millet in 1881 and representing an important resource for the study of Byzantine art in the Balkans and the Near East, the full collection comprises over 100,000 images, and it can be accessed at the EPHE. Although most of the material is Byzantine, the archive also includes slides, prints, and glass-plate images of Paleo-Christian, Carolingian, and post-Byzantine objects. For more about the collection, see Gabriel Millet, La collection chrétienne et byzantine des Hautes Études (Paris: E. Leroux, 1903); André Grabar et al., Catalogue des négatifs de la Collection chrétienne et byzantine fondée par Gabriel Millet (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1955); and Dominique Couson, Catalogue des documents photographiques originaux du fonds Gabriel Millet: monuments médiévaux de Yougoslavie, 1906–1935 (Louvain: Peeters, 1986). In progress is a catalogue by Ioanna Rapti, director of research at the EPHE and archive administrator.
Gabriel Millet (1867–1953) published extensively on Byzantine art and archaeology. He taught at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes from 1899 until his retirement in 1937, becoming head of studies in 1906. From 1927 onward, he also held the chair of aesthetics and history of art at the College de France. Millet was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1929.
This database comprises approximately 10,000 digital images of works in various media, including mosaics, sculpture, and architecture, although the majority manuscript illuminations.
Copyright of the images is held by EPHE in Paris. For more information, please contact Ioanna Rapti.
This project could not have been undertaken without the help of Professor Catherine Jolivet-Lévy, director of the Collection chrétienne et byzantine (Photothèque Gabriel Millet), and the support of Jean-Claude Waquet, president of the École Pratique de Hautes Études. The Index also extends its gratitude to Dominique Couson-Desreumaux, Ioanna Lagou, Jérôme Billaud, Maximilien Durand, Yves Fayet, Laurence Frabolot, Philippe Hoffmann, Françoise Dairé, Jerome Billaud, Maximilien Durand, Yves Fayet, Laurence Frabolot, and Philippe Hoffmann.