Louis Gonse

Louis Gonse (16 November 1846, in Paris – 19 December 1921, in Paris) was an art historian, Editor-in-Chief of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and Vice-President of the Commission for Historic Monuments. He was also one of the first European experts in Japanese art.

Biography His father, Jean Félix Emmanuel Gonse, was a civil servant who worked for the Post Office. His mother, Louise Stéphanie, née Courtin; daughter of , Director General of Military Hospitals. Her grandfather was the architect.

He obtained a law degree and audited classes at the École Nationale des Chartes, where he initially expressed an interest in Gothic art. He soon shifted his interests to Japanese art, enlisting Hayashi Tadamasa to help him with his research, and published his first article on the subject in Le Moniteur Universel, in 1873.

After collaborating with several artistic journals, he became Editor-in-Chief of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Later that same year, the Japanese government awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun. From 1917, he was Vice-President of the Council of National Museums and, just prior to his death, became an Officer in the Legion. In addition to his cultural activities, he served as the mayor of Cormeilles-en-Parisis from 1892 to 1899 and from 1900 to 1919. A street there is named after him.

His son, , became an architect. His brother, Charles-Arthur Gonse, an Adjutant to General Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, was involved in the Dreyfus Affair. His name is mentioned in J'accuse by Émile Zola.