Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in Italy. He is best known as the excavator of
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...
and of
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, where he uncovered a large proportion of the
Assyrian palace reliefs
Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotam ...
known, and in 1851 the
library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC, including texts in vari ...
. Most of his finds are now in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. He made a large amount of money from his best-selling accounts of his excavations.
He had a political career between 1852, when he was elected as a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
, and 1869, holding various junior ministerial positions. He was then made ambassador to Madrid, then Constantinople, living much of the time in a palazzo he bought in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. During this period he built up a significant collection of paintings, which due to a legal loophole he had as a diplomat, he was able to extricate from Venice and bequeathe to the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
(as the Layard Bequest) and other British museums.
Family
Layard was born in Paris,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, to a family of
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
descent. His father, Henry Peter John Layard, of the
Ceylon Civil Service
The Ceylon Civil Service, popularly known by its acronym CCS, was the premier civil service of the Government of Ceylon under British colonial rule and in the immediate post-independence period. Established in 1833, it functioned as part of the ...
, was the son of Charles Peter Layard, Dean of Bristol, and grandson of
Daniel Peter Layard
Daniel Peter Layard (1721–1802) was an English physician and midwife.
Biography
Daniel Peter Layard was the son of Pierre Raymond de Layard (1666-1747), a Huguenot of good parentage of Monflanquin in Guienne ( Lot et Garonne), who fled from Fr ...
the physician. His mother, Marianne, daughter of Nathaniel Austen, banker, of
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to t ...
, was of partial Spanish descent.
His uncle was
Benjamin Austen
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
, a London solicitor and close friend of
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
in the 1820s and 1830s.
Edgar Leopold Layard
Edgar Leopold Layard MBOU, (23 July 1824 – 1 January 1900) was a British diplomat and a naturalist mainly interested in ornithology and to a lesser extent the molluscs. He worked for a significant part of his life in Ceylon and late ...
the
ornithologist
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
was his brother.
On 9 March 1869 at
St. George's Church, Hanover Square, Westminster, London he married his first cousin once removed,
Mary Enid Evelyn Guest. Enid, as she was known, was the daughter of Sir Josiah John Guest and Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie. Their marriage was happy, though childless.
Biography
Early life
Much of Layard's boyhood was spent in Italy, where he received part of his schooling, and acquired a taste for the fine arts and a love of travel from his father; but he was at school also in England, France and
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. After spending nearly six years in the office of his uncle, Benjamin Austen, he was tempted to leave England for
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
(Ceylon) by the prospect of obtaining an appointment in the Civil Service, and he started in 1839 with the intention of making an overland journey across Asia.
After wandering for many months, chiefly in Persia, with
Bakhtiari people
The Bakhtiari (also spelled Bakhtiyari; fa, بختیاری) are a Lur tribe from Iran. They speak the Bakhtiari dialect of the Luri language.
Bakhtiaris primarily inhabit Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and eastern Khuzestan, Lorestan, Bushehr, a ...
and having abandoned his intention of proceeding to Ceylon, he returned in 1842 to the
Ottoman capital
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
where he made the acquaintance of
Sir Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador, who employed him in various unofficial diplomatic missions in European Turkey. In 1845, encouraged and assisted by Canning, Layard left Constantinople to make those explorations among the ruins of Assyria with which his name is chiefly associated. This expedition was in fulfilment of a design which he had formed when, during his former travels in the East, his curiosity had been greatly excited by the ruins of
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...
on the
Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...
, and by the great mound of
Kuyunjik
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ba ...
, near
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
, already partly excavated by
Paul-Émile Botta
Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Sharr ...
.
Excavations and the arts
![Mr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Mr._Layard_at_Kooyoonjik.jpg)
Layard remained in the neighbourhood of Mosul, carrying on excavations at
Kuyunjik
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ba ...
and
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...
, and investigating the condition of various peoples, until 1847; and, returning to England in 1848, published ''Nineveh and Its Remains'' (2 vols., 1848–1849).
To illustrate the antiquities described in this work he published a large folio volume of ''The Monuments of Nineveh. From Drawings Made on the Spot'' (1849). After spending a few months in England, and receiving the degree of
D.C.L. from the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
and the
Founder's Medal of the
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
, Layard returned to Constantinople as attaché to the British embassy, and, in August 1849, started on a second expedition, in the course of which he extended his investigations to the ruins of
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
and the mounds of southern
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
. He is credited with discovering the
Library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC, including texts in vari ...
during this period. His record of this expedition, ''Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon'', which was illustrated by another folio volume, called ''A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh'', was published in 1853. During these expeditions, often in circumstances of great difficulty, Layard despatched to England the splendid specimens which now form the greater part of the collection of
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n antiquities in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.
Layard believed that the native
Syriac Christian
Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...
communities living throughout the Near East were descended from the ancient
Assyrians.
Apart from the archaeological value of his work in identifying Kuyunjik as the site of
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, and in providing a great mass of materials for scholars to work upon, these two books of Layard were among the best written books of travel in the English language.
Layard was an important member of the
Arundel Society The Arundel Society, often called the Arundel Club, was founded in London in 1849 and named after the Earl of Arundel, the famous collector of the Arundel Marbles and one of the first great English patrons and lovers of the arts. The society was or ...
, and in 1866 he was appointed a trustee of the British Museum.
In the same year Layard founded "Compagnia Venezia Murano" and opened a venetian glass showroom in London at 431 Oxford Street.
Today
Pauly & C. - Compagnia Venezia Murano is one of the most important brands of venetian art glass production.
Political career
![Austen Henry Layard, Vanity Fair, 1869-08-28](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Austen_Henry_Layard%2C_Vanity_Fair%2C_1869-08-28.jpg)
Layard now turned to politics. Elected as a Liberal member for
Aylesbury
Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...
, Buckinghamshire in 1852, he was for a few weeks
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but afterwards freely criticised the government, especially in connection with army administration. He was present in the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
during the
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
, and was a member of the committee appointed to inquire into the conduct of the expedition. In 1855 he refused from
Lord Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...
an office not connected with foreign affairs, was elected
lord rector of
Aberdeen University
, mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
, established =
, type = Public research universityAncient university
, endowment = £58.4 million (2021)
, budget ...
, and on 15 June moved a resolution in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
(defeated by a 359–46 majority) declaring that in public appointments merit had been sacrificed to private influence and an adherence to routine. After being defeated at Aylesbury in 1857, he visited India to investigate the causes of the
Indian Mutiny
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
. He unsuccessfully contested
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
in 1859, but was elected for
Southwark
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
in 1860, and from 1861 to 1866 was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the successive administrations of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell.
After the Liberals returned to office in 1868 under
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
, Layard was made
First Commissioner of Works
The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and subsequent to 1922, within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irel ...
and sworn of the
Privy Council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...
.
Diplomatic career
Layard resigned from office in 1869, on being sent as envoy extraordinary to Madrid. In 1877 he was appointed by Lord Beaconsfield
Ambassador at Constantinople, where he remained until Gladstone's return to power in 1880, when he finally retired from public life. In 1878, on the occasion of the
Berlin Congress
The Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at th ...
, he was appointed a
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one ...
.
Retirement in Venice
![Henry Austen Layard Fratelli Vianelli BNF Gallica](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Henry_Austen_Layard_Fratelli_Vianelli_BNF_Gallica.jpg)
Layard retired to
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. There he took up residence in the sixteenth-century palazzo on the grand canal named
Ca Cappello, just behind
Campo San Polo
file:Chiesa di San Polo (Venice) -abside.jpg, Apse of ''Chiesa di San Polo''
file:Chiesa di San Polo (Venice) Plaque Abside .jpg, The plate of the prohibition of games.
The Campo San Polo is the largest campo in Venice, Italy, the second largest ...
, and which he had commissioned historian
Rawdon Brown
Rawdon Lubbock Brown (25 Jan 1806 in London – 25 August 1883 in Venice) was a British antiquarian.
Life
He was born in London, the second child of Hugh William Brown and Anna Eliza Lubbock. He was baptised on 20 Feb 1806 at St James Church in W ...
, another long-time British resident of Venice, to purchase for him in 1874.
In Venice he devoted much of his time to collecting pictures of the Venetian school, and to writing on Italian art.
On this subject he was a disciple of his friend
Giovanni Morelli
Giovanni Morelli (25 February 1816 – 28 February 1891) was an Italian art critic and political figure. As an art historian, he developed the "Morellian" technique of scholarship, identifying the characteristic "hands" of painters through s ...
, whose views he embodied in his revision of
Franz Kugler's ''Handbook of Painting, Italian Schools'' (1887). He wrote also an introduction to
Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes
Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes (1858–1950) was a British art historian, translator, and scholar of Italian Renaissance art. She participated in the adoption of the 'historical standpoint' method of research, a shift in art criticism that emerged in ...
's translation of Morelli's ''Italian Painters'' (1892–1893), and edited that part of ''
Murray's Handbook of Rome'' (1894) which deals with pictures. In 1887 he published, from notes taken at the time, a record of his first journey to the East, entitled ''Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia''. The late nineteenth century English novelist
George Gissing
George Robert Gissing (; 22 November 1857 – 28 December 1903) was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include ''The Nether World'' (1889), ''New Grub ...
thought it 'one of the most interesting books' vowing to 'read it again some day'. An abbreviation of this work, which as a book of travel is even more delightful than its predecessors, was published in 1894, shortly after the author's death, with a brief introductory notice by Lord Aberdare. Layard also from time to time contributed papers to various learned societies, including the Huguenot Society, of which he was first president.
He died on 5 July 1894 at his residence 1 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London.
[Philip Temple, Colin Thom, Andrew Saint (2017]
Survey of London: South-East Marylebone
Volumes 51 and 52 Yale University Press After a post mortem autopsy his remains were cremated at the Woking Crematorium in Surrey. His ashes were interred in the cemetery of
Canford Magna Parish Church
The Canford Magna Parish Church in Canford Magna, Dorset, England – possibly dedicated to St Augustine – is a mixture of Saxon, Norman and Mid Gothic architecture.
English Heritage have designated it a Grade I listed building.
History
Dur ...
in Dorset, England.
Publications
* , 2 volumes
**
alt.
**
alt.
*
** , 100 plates, ''From Drawings Made on the Spot.''
** , 71 plates, ''A Second Series
.including Bas-Reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib and Bronzes from the Ruins of Nimroud. From drawings made on the spot during a second expedition to Assyria.''
alt.plates only)
*
* , abridged version of ''Nineveh and its remains '' (1849)
*
*
*
* , abridged version of ''Nineveh and Babylon'' (1853)
*
* , 2 volumes
**
**
* , 2 volumes, biography
**
**
References
Further reading
* , also published by Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981, paperback, .
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
Feature about the Lanyard and Blenkinsopp Coulson Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Layard, Austen Henry
1817 births
1894 deaths
Archaeologists of the Near East
British archaeologists
English Assyriologists
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Rectors of the University of Aberdeen
Trustees of the British Museum
UK MPs 1852–1857
UK MPs 1859–1865
UK MPs 1865–1868
UK MPs 1868–1874
Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Ottoman Empire
Ambassadors of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Spain
Victorian writers
19th-century English writers
19th-century archaeologists
19th-century British diplomats
Burials in Dorset
British expatriates in the Ottoman Empire
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Assyriologists