By Colleen Kearney

The Provost's Office has named Carol C. Mattusch, a professor in the Department of History and Art History, to the Mathy Endowed Professorship in Art History.

This is the second time in as many years that the university has honored Mattusch. Last spring, Mattusch and her work with Greek and Roman bronzes was the focus of the first College of Arts and Sciences' (CAS) Celebration of Scholarship. And in December, the Archaeological Institute of America awarded Mattusch the ninth annual James R. Wiseman Book Award for her book, Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary (Cornell University Press, 1996), which has been called "a masterpiece of explanation of a technique that is usually difficult to understand."

"Carol is one of the greatest scholars in her field," says Daniele Struppa, CAS dean and a member of the selection committee. "During the selection process, we asked international experts in the field about her work and the responses were overwhelming."

"Highly original," "wonderful analysis," "bordering on unique," "outstanding scholarship," and "a pioneer" were among the accol ades used to describe Mattusch. She was also called "the finest English-speaking expert in Greek and Roman bronzes and one of the best in the world."

Mattusch achieved international recognition in 1996 when she curated the exhibition The Fire of Hephaistos: Large and Classical Bronzes from North American Collections. The exhibition originated at the Sackler Museum at Harvard University and later traveled to museums in Toledo, Ohio, and Tampa, Fla. Her catalogue of the exhibition, which has the same name, was published by Harvard University Art Museums. The exhibition was organized in conjunction with the 13th International Bronze Congress, held in Cambridge, Mass., in 1996, whose planning committee was led by Mattusch.

She also has published three other books on the subject: Bronzeworkers in the Athenian Agora (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1982), Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings through the Fifth Century B.C. (Cornell University Press, 1988), and, most recently, The Victorious Youth (J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997).

This academic year, Mattusch was also awarded a Samuel H. Kress Paired Fellowship for Research from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, which she shares with Henry Lie, director of the Straus Center for Conservation of the Harvard University Art Museums. The two are collaborating on the analysis of two sculptures found in the Villa dei Papyri at Herculaneum in the 18th century. Over the years, Mattusch has received numerous grants and honors from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut in Berlin.

But for Struppa and CAS, Mattusch doesn't just shine as a sc holar; she is also recognized as a great teacher. "Carol Mattusch has the energy and enthusiasm to make her scholarship an integral part of her teaching," says Struppa.

Recently, Mattusch had her coresearcher Henry Lie come to lecture in one of her classes on campus. The collaboration proved to be a powerful mix and provided a lively forum for discussion. "Those students had a chance to hear about research results that cannot be found in any book, and to discuss problems that nobody in the field has yet addressed," says Struppa. "Because she brought her scholarship into the classroom, the students become partners in the way her scholarship is developed. By discussing anecdotes from their trips to Naples, Mattusch and Lie helped the students realize what it really means to be an archaeologist or a conservation scientist."

Mattusch joined the university in 1977. From 1982 to 1992, she served as the chair of the Department of Art and Art History.

The professorship was made possible by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Mathy of Fairfax, who gave a large donation to the university in 1996 to support faculty research and development, and scholarships for outstanding undergraduate students.