Death of Hugo Buchthal, one of the last original Warburgians

Hugo Buchthal, one of the last representatives of the great tradition of German art history that suffered intensely at the hands of the Nazis, died aged eighty-seven in November. He was born in Berlin and studied art history and philosophy before concentrating on art history at Hamburg under the guidance of Erwin Panofsky. In 1933, following the Nazis’ rise to power, Hugo Buchthal moved to London with the staff of the Warburg Institute. His 1957 Book Illumination in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem broke entirely new ground outlining for the first time a whole school of miniature painting in the Crusading Kingdom.