In 1963, Erwin Panfosky published a short article on the Ideological Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce
Radiator. This text is above all a reflection on national stylistic identities and is therefore deeply indebted
to a German tradition of which Dagobert Frey and Nikolaus Pevsner are probably the best-known
representatives. The recent publication of the Panfoskyian correspondence sheds new light on this paper
and its genesis. Its analysis shows that the ‘American turn’ that Panofsky emphasized in his writings is
partly a self-fashioning, and that his German culture and education remain very much alive until late
in his career. In addressing the topic of national style, Panofsky distances himself from Pevsner and treats
it in an entirely different way. Looking back at this article allows us to grasp some of the issues at stake
in the writing of art history in the 1950s and 1960s, between Europe and the United States, and in the
intellectual career of one of the great masters of the discipline.