Maud Cruttwell

Maud Cruttwell was an English art historian, writer, biographer, and artist, born in 1859. She is remembered especially for her studies of Italian Renaissance art, including books on figures such as Luca Signorelli, Andrea Mantegna, the della Robbia family, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and Donatello.

She spent important years in Florence and moved in the circle around Bernard and Mary Berenson. Her work is often described as an early, influential example of a more analytical style of art criticism, helping bring serious Renaissance scholarship to a wider reading public.

Beyond art history, she also wrote biography and fiction. Cruttwell died in Paris on April 25, 1939, leaving behind a body of work that still matters to readers interested in Renaissance art and in the place of women in early art-historical writing.