Sirarpie Der Nersessian became a member of what organization or association in 1947?
Sirarpie Der Nersessian Sirarpie Der Nersessian ( 5 September 18965 July 1989 ) was an Armenian art historian , who specialized in Armenian and Byzantine studies . Der Nersessian was a renowned academic and a pioneer in Armenian art history . She taught at several institutions in the United States , including Wellesley College in Massachusetts and as Henri Focillon Professor of Art and Archaeology at Harvard University . She was a senior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks , its deputy director from 1954 to 1955 and 1961–62 and a member of its Board of Scholars . Der Nersessian was also a member of several international institutions such as the British Academy ( 1975 ) , the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres ( 1978 ) and the Armenian Academy of Sciences ( 1966 ) . Biography . Education . Der Nersessian was born the youngest of three children in Constantinople in 1896 . She came from a well-to-do family and her maternal uncle happened to be the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople , Malachia Ormanian . Her parents died while she was still young : her mother Akabi , when she was nine , and her father Mihran , when she was eighteen . She attended the Esayan Academy and the English Girls School in Constantinople , gaining fluency in Armenian , English and French at an early age . In 1915 , during the height of the Armenian genocide , Der Nersessian and her sister Arax ( by then orphans ) were forced to leave for Europe , where they took up residence in Geneva . Der Nersessian studied at the University of Geneva for several years until settling in Paris , France in 1919 . Der Nersessian was admitted to Sorbonne University , studying history at the École des Hautes Études de luniversité de Paris . She studied under the notable Byzantinologists Charles Diehl and Gabriel Millet and art historian Henri Focillon . In 1922 , she became Millets assistant , and with his help , published one of her first articles in 1929 . The two theses ( graduates students then had to submit two theses ) that she presented for her doctorat detat , Lillustration du roman de Barlaam et Joasaph and a paper on Armenian illuminated manuscripts during the late medieval period , were well-received ( earning a Mention très honorable ) , and both of them were awarded with prizes by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and Revue des Études Grecques when they were published in 1937 . Professor and pioneer . In 1930 , Der Nersessian moved to the United States at the suggestion of her three mentors , Byzantinists Charles Rufus Morey , Albert M . Friend Jr. , and Walter Cook , becoming a part-time lecturer at Wellesley College in Massachusetts . She taught art history at Wellesley , quickly gaining a full professorship and later becoming the chairwoman of the Department of Art History and Director of Farnsworth Museum . Der Nersessian was the first woman to teach Byzantine art at a womans college , the first woman to be decorated with the medal of Saint Gregory the Illuminator by Catholicos Vazgen I in 1960 , the first woman invited to lecture at the Collège de France in Paris , the only woman in her time to gain full professorship at Dumbarton Oaks , and the second woman to be honored with a gold medal from the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1970 . In 1947 , she received the Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women . Der Nersessian remained at Dumbarton Oaks until 1978 , when she retired to France and lived with her sister in Paris . Upon retirement , she had her entire library shipped to the Matenadaran in Yerevan , so as to better help Armenian scholars in their studies . Shortly after her death in 1989 , an endowment fund for prospective art history students in Armenia , Fonds Sirarpie Der Neressian at the Institut de Recherches sur les Miniatures Arméno-Byzantines , was created in her honor . Bibliography . Der Nersessians work primarily concerned Armenian art history , including the study of church architecture , illuminated manuscripts , miniatures and sculpture . Below is a partial list of books and articles that she authored . Her 1945 book , Armenia and the Byzantine Empire , was praised by art historians David Talbot Rice , Jurgis Baltrušaitis , and Alexander Vasiliev . Vasiliev wrote in his review of the book that she is the best authority of our day on Armenian history , art , and civilization . Books . - Armenia and the Byzantine Empire . Cambridge , Massachusetts : Harvard University Press , 1945 . - Aghtamar : Church of the Holy Cross . Cambridge , Mass. : Harvard University Press , 1964 . - Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery . Baltimore : The Trustees , 1973 . - Armenian miniatures from Isfahan . Brussels : Les Editeurs d’Art Associés , 1986 . - The Armenians . New York : Praeger , 1969 . - LArt arménien . Paris : Art européen . Publications filmées dart et dhistoire , 1965 . - Lillustration du roman de Barlaam et Joasaph . Paris : de Boccard , 1937 . - Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century . Washington D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Studies , 1993 . Articles . - The Armenian Chronicle of the Constable Smpad or of the Royal Historian . Dumbarton Oaks Papers , Vol . 13 , 1959 , pp . 141–168 . - An Armenian Gospel of the Fifteenth Century . The Boston Public Library Quarterly . 1950 , pp . 3–20 . - A General View of the Manuscripts of San Lazarro . Bazmavep . Venice , 1947 , pp . 269–272 . - Pagan and Christian Art in Egypt . An exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum . The Art Bulletin . Vol . 33 , 1941 , pp . 165–167 . - Two Miracles of the Virgin in the Poems of Gautier de Coincy . Dumbarton Oaks Papers , Vol . 41 , 1987 , pp . 157–163 . - The Kingdom of Cilician Armenia , A History of the Crusades , edited by Kenneth M . Setton , 1969 .