Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III (August 10, 1925 – November 27, 2008) was an American scholar of ancient art and curator of classical art at theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1957 to 1996. He was also well known as anumismatist.^[1] He also used the pseudonyms Wentworth Bunsen, Isao Tsukinabe and Northwold Nuffler.

He was born inOrange, New Jersey, on August 10, 1925, toCornelius Clarkson Vermeule II.^[2] Vermeule enteredHarvard University in 1943, in the same year as his father's suicide and the continued escalation ofWorld War II prompted him to join theUnited States Army.

Vermeule married the archaeologistEmily Dickinson Townsend in 1957.^[3] Emily Vermeule was a classical scholar and theDoris Zemurray Stone Professor atHarvard University. He is the father ofEmily Dickinson Blake "Blakey" Vermeule, a professor of English atStanford University andAdrian Vermeule, a law professor atHarvard Law School.

In the Army he studied Japanese and was sent to the Pacific Theater, where he stayed in Japan after the war as a language expert, attaining the rank of captain. He completed his A.B. atHarvard University in 1947 and his A.M. in 1951 underGeorge M.A. Hanfmann. He earned hisPh.D. at theUniversity of London in 1953.

From 1953 to 1955 he taught fine arts at theUniversity of Michigan. From there he shifted toBryn Mawr College as Professor of archaeology until 1957 when was appointed curator of classical collections for theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston. He married a Bryn Mawr student, Emily Townsend that same year. While at the Museum, Vermeule was also a Lecturer in fine arts atSmith College. He was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1969.^[4]

Vermeule assumed the directorship of the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1970s. His term as curator was marked by the purchase of two large vases portraying the fall ofTroy and the death ofAgamemnon, a Roman portrait of an old man, and a Minoan gold double ax. He trained several curators, includingMarion True of theJ. Paul Getty Museum andCarlos Picon.

He died at age 83 inCambridge, Massachusetts, on November 27, 2008, of the complications from a stroke.^[2]

• Robinson, Walter V. "New MFA Link Seen to Looted Artifacts."Boston Globe December 27, 1998, p. 1.article
• Temin, Christine. "A Not-So-Classic Curator."Boston Globe September 10, 1995, p. 16.
• "Former PWA Chief Found Dead on Ferry, Apparently a Suicide."The New York Times August 8, 1943, p. 32.

• (with Norman Jacobs)Japanese Coinage, Numismatic Review, New York, 1953.
• 'Modern Japanese and Chinese coins in theBritish Museum (part I)',Numismatic Chronicle, 1954, 186-96. 'Part II',Numismatic Chronicle, 1955, 215-221.
• A Bibliography of Applied Numismatics in the Fields of Greek and Roman Archaeology and the Fine Arts. (London, 1956).
• [as Isao Tsukinabe]Old Bodrum. Somerset Society, 1964.
• European Art and the Classical Past. (Cambridge, 1964).
• Numismatic Art in America. (Cambridge, 1971).
• with Neuerburg, Norman, and Helen Lattimore.Catalogue of the Ancient Art in the J. Paul Getty Museum: the Larger Statuary, Wall Paintings and Mosaics. (Malibu, 1973).
• Greek Sculpture and Roman Taste: the Purpose and Setting of Graeco-Roman Art in Italy and the Greek Imperial East. (Ann Arbor, 1977).
• The Cult Images of Imperial Rome. (Rome, 1987).
• Art and Archaeology of Antiquity. 4 vols. London: Pindar Press, 2001-2003.

• 1925 births
• 2008 deaths
• 20th-century American archaeologists
• Alumni of the University of London
• American art curators
• American numismatists
• Bryn Mawr College faculty
• Harvard University alumni
• Historians from New Jersey
• Military personnel from Essex County, New Jersey
• People from Orange, New Jersey
• United States Army officers
• University of Michigan faculty
• Vermeule family

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