Rene Schmerling

1901-67 / art historian

Rene was an outstanding researcher and historian of Georgian art. She was one of the founders of what is known today as the Giorgi Chubinashvili National Centre for the Study of Georgian Art History and Monument Protection. She wrote important works on medieval Georgian architecture and architectural decor, old Georgian sculpture and relief, and ornamentation of hand-written books. She also studied Georgian palaeography. Her most popular work was a guidebook to monuments of Georgian architecture.

She often illustrated her own works with pictures of the objects of study, be they ironwork decorations or ornamented manuscripts. Scherling's works occupy an important place in the academic literature on Georgian art history. The importance of her role in researching many heretofore unstudied monuments of Georgian art and architecture cannot be overstated.