Multilingual Dictionaries for Art Librarians

This informal bibliography of multilingual or polyglot dictionaries was recently posted on ARLIS-L by Kim Collins at Emory:

1. Jones, Lois Swan. Art Information: Research Methods and Resources. 3rd ed. Publication Information: Dubuque, Iowa : Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., c1990. See Appendix B and D.–Pages 299-328 consist of dictionaries of art terms in French, German, Italian, etc.

 

2. Multilingual glossary for art librarians : English with indexes in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. München ; New Providence : K.G. Saur, 1996

 

3. Ian Sheridan’s An Art Librarian’s Glossary, published in 1984 by the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. It’s a dictionary type book of art terms in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German

 

4. Haggar, Reginald George. A dictionary of art terms: painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving and etching, lithography and other art processes, heraldry. [1962] reprinted 1984 According to Marmor and Ross¹ Guide to the Lit. of Art History 2: Glossary contains separate lists of French, German, and Italian terms, With English equivalents, useful for students preparing for graduate art history language exams.

 

5. Elsevier’s dictionary of architecture in five languages : English, French, Spanish, German, and Dutch / compiled by J.-P. Vandenberghe. Amsterdam ; New York : Elsevier Science Publishers, 1988.

 

6. Das Grosse Fachworterbuch fur Kunst und Antiquitaten / herausgegeben und zusammengestellt von Christian Mu?ller, unter Mitarbeit von Roger Franz … [et al.]. Other Title: Art and antiquities dictionary. Publisher: Munchen : Weltkunst Verlag, c1982- ISBN: 3921669006

 

7. Dictionnaire polyglotte des termes d’art et d’archeìologie. Edition: [1. eìd.] /Reìau, Louis, 1881-1961 Publisher: Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1953 and “Dictionnaire polyglotte des termes d’art et archéologie” , repr. 1977, orig. ed. 1953 If you look at the Metropolitan Museum’s Watsonline (their OPAC), you will find the full citation for both editions.

 

8. Elsevier’s Dictionary of art history terms: in French-English and English-French / compiled by Jean-Pierre Michaux = Elsevier’s dictionnaire des termes d’histoire de l’art : français-anglais et anglais-français / par Jean-Pierre Michaux. Amsterdam ; Boston : Elsevier, c2005.

 

9. That sounds a lot like a pamphlet I used to use that was an aide for art catalogers. If you put dictionaries–polyglot‹art into WorldCat, you¹ll put up similar stuff.

 

10. online version of the IFLA dictionary: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s30/pub/mg1.htm

 

11. English-German dictionary, art history-archaeology = English-deutsches Wörterbuch für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie / von Mary L. Apelt. Published/Created: Berlin : E. Schmidt, c1987. Since the student is actually studying for a German exam, I’d recommend: M. Apelt, English-German dictionary: art history-archaeology (1982 and 1987). Out of print, but many libraries have it.

 

12. Dictionary of Translated Names and Titles, by Adrian Roon. French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian from “Aachen” to “Utopia.”