Isabella: Summary of Archival Research
Although I only had a day and a half in the archives this week, I was able to find an incredibly comprehensive resource to help supplement my own research. It is called African Sculpture from the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania by Allen Wardwell. He provides a brief history of the museum's acquisition of the African collections and I have been using to create a clear, neat summary of how all of the objects came into the collection, who was involved, and when did the objects arrive in the museum. It has also helped me figure out which folders would be most useful to find richer information about the provenance of these materials. Bellow is a collection of my notes thus far that I will polish up into paragraphs later today:
The book was published in conjunction with a cooperative exhibition between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum. It was called "Treasures of Ancient Nigeria," and the bulk of the objects in the exhibit were purchased from W.O. Oldman. The book intends to give a background to how the museum received its African collections and then give an in-depth, art-focused analysis of a selection of individual objects.
Immediately, the book explains the collection's provenance by saying this, "“To build its African collections, The University Museum, like all museums interested in the field, first turned to the existing networks, namely the missionaries and the few colonial government officials who were active among African peoples (p. 9)." Until Henry Usher Hall's expedition into Sierra Leone in 1936-37, most of the objects have very little documentation because they had been collected based on the personal tastes of military officials and missionaries. Hall's expedition marks the first time the museum attempted an in-depth study of an African culture that it strove to achieve through its other archaeological and ethnological expeditions. Unlike the earlier collections bought from collectors or donated by colonizers, all of these objects were all carefully documented. Interestingly enough, a previous director of the Penn Museum, Robert H. Dyson Jr., has this to say about the collections to preface the book, “In keeping with its commitment to the principle than an object removed from its cultural context can only reveal part of its story and its orientation toward scholarly research, the museum places paramount importance upon adequate evidence of the source and purpose of its accessions....Despite the lack of detailed information on many of the early acquisitions, this selection nevertheless contains works that were made and used by African peoples for a way of life that has long since been affected by both colonialism and modernization.”
Through this book, I was able to create a brief timeline of the Penn Museum's major acquisitions of the African collection. I am continuing this outline, but I have provided a detailed history of the major moments and donors to the early parts of the collection:
1891--> The first "significant" African objects entered the collections in 1891 after Reverend Robert Hamill Nassau gifted 117 examples of art and ethnography from Gabon. Nassau was a member of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and had served in Africa from 1861 to 1891. After 1874, he lived in Lambaréné, Gabon and became an authority of the Fang people. When he returned to Philadelphia, he gave most of the Fang objects to the Penn Museum (p. 15).
1891--> Dr. Thomas G. Morton, a Philadelphia surgeon, was another early donors of African objects to the museums.
1892--> Nassau wrote the African section for the catalogue of the Penn Museum's exhibit, "Objects Used in Religious Ceremonies." Three Africa objects (that were described as idols) were used in the exhibition and they were all donated from Nassau. The first director of the Museum, Stewart Culin, organized this exhibition in 1982. If there is greater interest in Nassau, the letters he wrote and received during his time in Africa could be accessed through the Burke Library Archives at Columbia:http://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/libraryweb/locations/burke/fa/mrl/ldpd_4492530.pd
1892--> An architect and missionary from Germantown, Matthew Henry Kerr, was sent by the Presbyterian Board to build mission stations in Africa. He worked with the Bulu in the southern Cameroons until 1899. Alongside Dr. Adolphus C. Good, he translated a hymnal and the Four Gospels into the Bulu language. He did not bring back much material from the Cameroons, but one sculpture was given to the museum by his daughter-in-law. Here is the sculpture:
https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/244120
1899--> Arthur Donaldson Smith, doctor, big game hunter, and explorer, donated 145 ethnological objects to the Penn Museum. These objects were collected during his 18 month expedition to Somalia and Lake Rudolph in Kenya.
1901--> Ultimately, Smith removed all of the loans except 12 in 1901 after the museum could not provide provisions for the objects’ adequate exhibition. However, the museum in 1914 purchased 400 objects that Smith collected in the 1890s in Abyssinia and the northeastern Belgian Congo. Another interesting fact about Smith is the fact that he wrote the book Through Unknown African Countries: the First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Rudolf. Here is an online copy of the book: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/681/ Could this be useful to push back against the Conrad narrative?
In between this time, the British anthropologist and museum curation from Halifax, Henry Ling Roth, donated 19 objects (the majority of which are Benin bracelets) to the Penn Museum. These objects had been taken from Benin City during the 1897 British Punitive Expedition. Although he did not go to Benin himself, his brother F. Norman was a medical officer for the Punitive Expedition.
1905→ Reverend W. H. Leslie gave one hundred objects to the museum which he collected when he worked in the lower Congo River area at the beginning of the 20th century. In exchange for the material he collected, Leslie had the museum pay for part of his expenses in Africa
1910--> George Byron Gordon was appointed Director in 1910. The 17 year span of his directorship was the most important period for the formation of both the African and Oceanian collections of the University Museum.
1911→ the first African objects arrived from Oldman: three Epa festival headdresses from the Yoruba of Nigeria. By this time, Oldman had built himself a reputation for collecting ethnographical and "primitive" art and he would later become the most important source for the museum's African collections.
1912→ Oldman sent a group of 60 Benin objects that were part of the famous collection of British General Augustus Pitt-Rivers which had been brought out during the Punitive Expedition of 1897. “When these works were combined with the group given by Roth in 1899, the museum suddenly had a specific concentration of African objects of similar provenance.”
1912--> The German Firm J.F.G Umlauff was also a major contributor to the African collections. In 1912, Gordon purchased a group of 1,827 objects from Umlauff that had been collected between 1904 and 1906 by the German Africanist and ethnographer Leo Frobenius. The material Gordon had bought from Umlauff was gathered from Frobenius's first expedition to the Kasai and Congo river basins in the Congo Free State. The objects that the Penn Museum received were initially considered surplus by the Hamburg Museum and then turned over to Umlauff.
During separate research of Frobenius, here are some quotes of his that reflect his changing attitudes towards African peoples, "I was moved to silent melancholy at the thought that this assembly of degenerate and feeble-minded posterity should be the legitimate guardians of so much loveliness." This can be compared to his opinion that African people are, "civilized to the marrow of their bones.”
1913--> Emil Torday was a collector who worked with worked with the Kuba in the Congo Free State between 1900 and 1907 and conducted the first chronological studies of Kuba sculpture and formed a large Congo collection for the British Museum in London. He researched and wrote on the Frobenius material and sold the museum his own small Congo collection (including a Pende cup).
1914→ Henry Usher Hall joined the museum staff, assistant curator in the section of general ethnology 1916-1923, curator from 1924-1935. He had particular interest in Africa. Hall brought the expertise and scholarship to Gordon’s contact and enthusiasm, together they worked as a team to build up the African collections. He wrote extensively about the African collections in museum publications between 1917-1932. He conducted the museum’s expedition in Sierra Leone in 1936-37.
1917→ The museum had begun to seek examples of African sculptures from more selective sources as objects from “exotic” cultures were becoming accepted as art rather than curios. For example, the museum received objects from Dikran Kelekian. Dikran Kelekian was the proprietor of a gallery that specialized in ancient art, selling Egyptian and Assyrian objects to the museum and in 1917 sent a group of African sculptures as well.
1919→ Gordon visited the Arts d’Asie gallery in Paris that was run by H. Vignier. There, Gordon bought 19 examples from the gallery for the museum. Vignier assembled objects of very high quality, such as the Luba stool, luba bowl bearer, and brass female figure.
1920→ Oldman sent another group of objects that were brought out of Benin City in 1897 by Colonel Maximilian John DeBathe. This group also included Benin cared elephant tusks from the collection of Henry Lyne of London, which also part of the Punitive Expedition. The entire collection was acquired for 765 pounds.
1920→ Oldman bought a collection of 84 objects from Belgian Captain C. Blank who had gathered these objects during a tour of duty in the Belgian Congo, just prior to 1920. The collection included a number of small magic figures from the lower Congo region.
1920→ Henry C. Mercer was one of the early benefactors of the museum and became involved with the African Collections in 1920 when he began to consider funding Amandus Johnson’s proposed expedition to Angola to collect tools and implements from the Amandus and neighboring peoples. Mercer intended to share what Johnson collected with the institution.
The book was published in conjunction with a cooperative exhibition between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum. It was called "Treasures of Ancient Nigeria," and the bulk of the objects in the exhibit were purchased from W.O. Oldman. The book intends to give a background to how the museum received its African collections and then give an in-depth, art-focused analysis of a selection of individual objects.
Immediately, the book explains the collection's provenance by saying this, "“To build its African collections, The University Museum, like all museums interested in the field, first turned to the existing networks, namely the missionaries and the few colonial government officials who were active among African peoples (p. 9)." Until Henry Usher Hall's expedition into Sierra Leone in 1936-37, most of the objects have very little documentation because they had been collected based on the personal tastes of military officials and missionaries. Hall's expedition marks the first time the museum attempted an in-depth study of an African culture that it strove to achieve through its other archaeological and ethnological expeditions. Unlike the earlier collections bought from collectors or donated by colonizers, all of these objects were all carefully documented. Interestingly enough, a previous director of the Penn Museum, Robert H. Dyson Jr., has this to say about the collections to preface the book, “In keeping with its commitment to the principle than an object removed from its cultural context can only reveal part of its story and its orientation toward scholarly research, the museum places paramount importance upon adequate evidence of the source and purpose of its accessions....Despite the lack of detailed information on many of the early acquisitions, this selection nevertheless contains works that were made and used by African peoples for a way of life that has long since been affected by both colonialism and modernization.”
Through this book, I was able to create a brief timeline of the Penn Museum's major acquisitions of the African collection. I am continuing this outline, but I have provided a detailed history of the major moments and donors to the early parts of the collection:
1891--> The first "significant" African objects entered the collections in 1891 after Reverend Robert Hamill Nassau gifted 117 examples of art and ethnography from Gabon. Nassau was a member of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and had served in Africa from 1861 to 1891. After 1874, he lived in Lambaréné, Gabon and became an authority of the Fang people. When he returned to Philadelphia, he gave most of the Fang objects to the Penn Museum (p. 15).
1891--> Dr. Thomas G. Morton, a Philadelphia surgeon, was another early donors of African objects to the museums.
1892--> Nassau wrote the African section for the catalogue of the Penn Museum's exhibit, "Objects Used in Religious Ceremonies." Three Africa objects (that were described as idols) were used in the exhibition and they were all donated from Nassau. The first director of the Museum, Stewart Culin, organized this exhibition in 1982. If there is greater interest in Nassau, the letters he wrote and received during his time in Africa could be accessed through the Burke Library Archives at Columbia:http://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/libraryweb/locations/burke/fa/mrl/ldpd_4492530.pd
1892--> An architect and missionary from Germantown, Matthew Henry Kerr, was sent by the Presbyterian Board to build mission stations in Africa. He worked with the Bulu in the southern Cameroons until 1899. Alongside Dr. Adolphus C. Good, he translated a hymnal and the Four Gospels into the Bulu language. He did not bring back much material from the Cameroons, but one sculpture was given to the museum by his daughter-in-law. Here is the sculpture:
https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/244120
1899--> Arthur Donaldson Smith, doctor, big game hunter, and explorer, donated 145 ethnological objects to the Penn Museum. These objects were collected during his 18 month expedition to Somalia and Lake Rudolph in Kenya.
1901--> Ultimately, Smith removed all of the loans except 12 in 1901 after the museum could not provide provisions for the objects’ adequate exhibition. However, the museum in 1914 purchased 400 objects that Smith collected in the 1890s in Abyssinia and the northeastern Belgian Congo. Another interesting fact about Smith is the fact that he wrote the book Through Unknown African Countries: the First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Rudolf. Here is an online copy of the book: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/681/ Could this be useful to push back against the Conrad narrative?
In between this time, the British anthropologist and museum curation from Halifax, Henry Ling Roth, donated 19 objects (the majority of which are Benin bracelets) to the Penn Museum. These objects had been taken from Benin City during the 1897 British Punitive Expedition. Although he did not go to Benin himself, his brother F. Norman was a medical officer for the Punitive Expedition.
1905→ Reverend W. H. Leslie gave one hundred objects to the museum which he collected when he worked in the lower Congo River area at the beginning of the 20th century. In exchange for the material he collected, Leslie had the museum pay for part of his expenses in Africa
1910--> George Byron Gordon was appointed Director in 1910. The 17 year span of his directorship was the most important period for the formation of both the African and Oceanian collections of the University Museum.
1911→ the first African objects arrived from Oldman: three Epa festival headdresses from the Yoruba of Nigeria. By this time, Oldman had built himself a reputation for collecting ethnographical and "primitive" art and he would later become the most important source for the museum's African collections.
1912→ Oldman sent a group of 60 Benin objects that were part of the famous collection of British General Augustus Pitt-Rivers which had been brought out during the Punitive Expedition of 1897. “When these works were combined with the group given by Roth in 1899, the museum suddenly had a specific concentration of African objects of similar provenance.”
1912--> The German Firm J.F.G Umlauff was also a major contributor to the African collections. In 1912, Gordon purchased a group of 1,827 objects from Umlauff that had been collected between 1904 and 1906 by the German Africanist and ethnographer Leo Frobenius. The material Gordon had bought from Umlauff was gathered from Frobenius's first expedition to the Kasai and Congo river basins in the Congo Free State. The objects that the Penn Museum received were initially considered surplus by the Hamburg Museum and then turned over to Umlauff.
During separate research of Frobenius, here are some quotes of his that reflect his changing attitudes towards African peoples, "I was moved to silent melancholy at the thought that this assembly of degenerate and feeble-minded posterity should be the legitimate guardians of so much loveliness." This can be compared to his opinion that African people are, "civilized to the marrow of their bones.”
1913--> Emil Torday was a collector who worked with worked with the Kuba in the Congo Free State between 1900 and 1907 and conducted the first chronological studies of Kuba sculpture and formed a large Congo collection for the British Museum in London. He researched and wrote on the Frobenius material and sold the museum his own small Congo collection (including a Pende cup).
1914→ Henry Usher Hall joined the museum staff, assistant curator in the section of general ethnology 1916-1923, curator from 1924-1935. He had particular interest in Africa. Hall brought the expertise and scholarship to Gordon’s contact and enthusiasm, together they worked as a team to build up the African collections. He wrote extensively about the African collections in museum publications between 1917-1932. He conducted the museum’s expedition in Sierra Leone in 1936-37.
1917→ The museum had begun to seek examples of African sculptures from more selective sources as objects from “exotic” cultures were becoming accepted as art rather than curios. For example, the museum received objects from Dikran Kelekian. Dikran Kelekian was the proprietor of a gallery that specialized in ancient art, selling Egyptian and Assyrian objects to the museum and in 1917 sent a group of African sculptures as well.
1919→ Gordon visited the Arts d’Asie gallery in Paris that was run by H. Vignier. There, Gordon bought 19 examples from the gallery for the museum. Vignier assembled objects of very high quality, such as the Luba stool, luba bowl bearer, and brass female figure.
1920→ Oldman sent another group of objects that were brought out of Benin City in 1897 by Colonel Maximilian John DeBathe. This group also included Benin cared elephant tusks from the collection of Henry Lyne of London, which also part of the Punitive Expedition. The entire collection was acquired for 765 pounds.
1920→ Oldman bought a collection of 84 objects from Belgian Captain C. Blank who had gathered these objects during a tour of duty in the Belgian Congo, just prior to 1920. The collection included a number of small magic figures from the lower Congo region.
1920→ Henry C. Mercer was one of the early benefactors of the museum and became involved with the African Collections in 1920 when he began to consider funding Amandus Johnson’s proposed expedition to Angola to collect tools and implements from the Amandus and neighboring peoples. Mercer intended to share what Johnson collected with the institution.
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