André de Ridder

André de Ridder wrote the printed catalogue of the Cypriot antiquities of Louis de Clercq, Tome V of the Collection de Clercq. According to his obituary in Syria, he was a former pupil of the École d'Athènes who taught at the University of Aix-Marseille before moving to Paris to publish the catalogue of the Greek vases in the Bibliothèque nationale. The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres then commissioned him to study the antiquities De Clercq had assembled, mostly from Syria. His five quarto volumes cover bronzes, marbles, painted vases, ivories, Cypriot antiquities, terracottas, glass, jewels and engraved stones, with a general index in 1912; the obituary praises his taste in rejecting doubtful pieces¹.

Its title is Les antiquités chypriotes (1908)¹²; Tome VI of 1909 treats the terracottas and glass¹³, and Tome VII of 1911 the jewels and engraved stones¹⁴. In Tome V he cited a Base Ring figurine with a child from Alambra in a note without recognising it as lot 3 of the 1901 Serrure sale³. A. Hermary doubts the Idalion provenance given for pl. 19, no. 108⁵. De Ridder also set down that Aimé Péretié had passed vases with Cypriot syllabic inscriptions to De Clercq in 1872².

In 1908 he entered the Louvre as conservateur adjoint of Greek and Roman Antiquities and published the catalogue of the antique bronzes. There he credited a bronze leg of a colossal statue to a gift from "M. Mattei", from Cyprus; Hélène Cassimatis, working from the Louvre archives, says instead that it was Péretié's last gift and came from Saida². De Ridder died on 12 May 1921, in his 53rd year, while finishing the catalogue of the Louvre jewellery¹.