Eleanor P. DeLorme

Eleanor P. DeLorme is senior lecturer in the Art Department and adjunct curator for the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College. She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. degree (1978), where she received honors in Art History and the Durant Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa Awards, and received her M. A. from Harvard University (1980).

After living and traveling widely in France for many years, studying great private collections with the Principal Inspector of Historic Monuments, DeLorme joined the Wellesley faculty in l984. Here she presented the first survey course that explores French history, architecture, painting, sculpture, fashion, jewelry, porcelain, silver, and sumptuary arts for each period from the Gothic to Art Deco. Her courses in specific periods (Age of Louis XIV, Marie-Antoinette, Joséphine) offer in-depth studies of the arts in their historical and cultural contexts. Her classes include visits to private collections in France and museums with curators. Distinguished scholars and curators also lecture to the class.

In order to make a world-class example of French decorative art available to students and visitors to the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, she donated a pair of portes-torchères by Georges Jacob (c. 1790), the celebrated cabinetmaker to Louis XV1, Marie-Antoinette, and the court. Another gift was a Louis XVI-style cylinder desk belonging to the great English statesman, William Wilberforce, who was largely responsible for abolishing slavery in the British Empire. A third gift was a large Chinese scroll painting (c.1600).

DeLorme contributes numerous articles to art history journals. Her books are Garden Pavilions at the Eighteenth-Century French Court (1996), in French and English editions, and Joséphine, Napoléon's Incomparable Empress (Abrams, 2002). The latter was awarded First Prize by the International Napoleonic Society for "significant contributions to Napoleonic studies as exemplified by the quality of research, originality, style, and analysis” in the 2003 literary competition. A sequel to this volume, Joséphine and the Arts of the Empire (J. Paul Getty Museum) is available in September 2005.

DeLorme has often participated in lecture series for the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Harvard University, Newport Symposium, Alliance Française in various cities, and for other colleges and museums.

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Profile last updated: 8/05