Johanna Engelberta van Lohuizen-de Leeuw (25 October 1919 - 8 December 1983) was a Dutch archaeologist and art historian, specializing in South and South-east Asia. Fluent in Sanskrit, she contributed important research to the study of antiquities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka, as well as in Thailand and Indonesia. Along with Raymond and Bridget Allchin, Jan van Lohuizen, and Harold Bailey, she founded the Ancient and Indian Iran Trust in Cambridge in 1978 to support historical and archaeological research in those regions, which later became a center of academic research in the field. She made notable contributions to the history of Kusana art. She was active in conservation efforts to preserve the archaeological sites of Indus Valley settlements at Mohenjo Daro, working with UNESCO for this purpose. She was also a photographer, and personally built an extensive collection of photographs of rare Asian artifacts, which is now housed in the University of Leiden.
Early life and education
Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw was born on 25 October 1919 in Amsterdam, to Willem Carel de Leeuw and Margareta Lievina Muller, and spent part of her childhood in the United States. Her early education was in Baarn and
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper
Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper (July 7, 1907 – November 14, 2003) was a distinguished scholar in Indology, and "one of the last great Indologists of the past century ... His very innovative work covers virtually all the fields of Indo-Irania ...
3rd century
The 3rd century was the period from 201 ( CCI) to 300 (CCC) Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar..
In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexander ...
A.D. During her studies, she also worked in several museums in Leiden, cataloguing Indian photos at the Kern Institute, researching Hindu Javanese antiquities in the Leiden Museum of Ethnology, and teaching Sanskrit at
Groningen University
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is the ...
.
Career
Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw began her career teaching at Cambridge University in 1951, where she lectured on Indian art and archaeology. In 1958, she was appointed professor of archaeology at the University of Amsterdam, where she taught the early history of South and South-east Asia. She founded the Institute of South Asian Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam.
In 1978, along with
Raymond Allchin
Frank Raymond Allchin, FBA (9 July 1923 – 4 June 2010) was a British archaeologist and Indologist. He and his wife, Bridget Allchin, formed one of the most influential British partnerships in the post-Independence study of South Asian archaeolo ...
,
Bridget Allchin
Bridget Allchin (10 February 1927 – 27 June 2017) was an archaeologist who specialised in South Asian archaeology. She published many works, some co-authored with her husband, Raymond Allchin (1923–2010).
Background
She was born Bridget G ...
, Harold Bailey, and her husband, Jan van Lohuizen, she founded the Ancient and Indian Iran Trust in Cambridge, to promote study in South Asian and Iranian archaeology and art. In order to house the institute, they bought a house in which they shared their private collections and established a substantial library of books, materials, and items relating to South, and Central Asian art and archaeology. The Van Lohuizen library at the Institute now houses papers, archives, and research of Johanna van Lohuize-de Leeuw as well as Jan Van Lohuizen, and is an important archive of artifacts and scholarship, especially in Dutch, in the field.
Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw's contributions to South Asian art and archaeology range over several periods, but she is chiefly remembered for her doctoral work on the Scythian period in North Indian art, as well as her work in establishing the roots of Kusana sculpture in the regions of
Gandhara
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...
and
Mathura
Mathura () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Mathura district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located approximately north of Agra, and south-east of Delhi; about from the town of Vrindavan, and from Govardhan. ...
. Her work was critical not only in establishing accurate chronologies, but also in tracing and demonstrating the influences of foreign cultures, especially of Hellenic art in depictions of the Buddha, and is now a widely accepted interpretation of the period. She is also considered to be an authority on the study of imagery depicting the Buddha.
Other research by her focused on antiquities in Sindh, on ivory sculptures from medieval Odisha, on the history and art of stupas, and Rajput sculpture and paintings, and include an extensive list of publications including over 80 academic articles and several books. Her research helped identify several artistic reliefs in
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 ...
, especially at archaeological sites in
Isurumuniya
Isurumuniya is a Buddhist temple situated near to the Tissa Wewa (Tisa tank) in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. There are four carvings of special interest in this Vihara. They are the Isurumuniya Lovers, Elephant Pond and The Royal Family.
History ...
, and in Indonesia. She worked with UNESCO to conserve archaeological sites at
Mohenjo Daro
Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';
She was the editor of a number of notable academic publications, including ''Studies in South Asian Culture'' from 1969 to 1993 and ''Handbuch der Orientalistik'', ''Kunst und Archäologie'' from 1970 to 1992. At the European Association of South Asian Archaeaeology and Art, she established biennial conferences for the field to promote academic dialogue and was elected the president for these conferences.
Between 1956 and 1983, she built an extensive personal collection of black and white photographs of ancient Asian artifacts, documented from her visits to archaeological sites as well as recording artifacts in public and private collections that she had accessed. She was instrumental in encouraging her colleagues to also make such photographic records of their work, and collaborated with professional photographers like Josephine Powell to photograph and document Asian art and artifacts. Her entire collection, comprising over 30,000 images, was housed during her lifetime at the Institute of South Asian Archaeology in Amsterdam, but is now situated at the University of Leiden, at the Kern Institute.
Personal life and death
She married fellow historian Jan van Lohuizen in 1943. They did not have any children. She died of a hemorrhage in 1983, in Amsterdam.
Bibliography
Selected works by Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw include:
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