By Yaëlle Biro, with object entries by Constantine Petridis 101 Since Allen Wardwell’s 1986 catalog of highlights of the African art collection at Penn Museum,3 little attention has been given to this institution’s rich holdings and collecting history. With its dynamic acquisition policy established at the turn of the twentieth century, this museum was one of the first in America to systematically seek and acquire large collections of works from across the African continent. Investigating its earliest Congolese holdings will highlight a variety of sources and an aggressive collecting strategy that evolved with time. Wardwell has described in detail the origins of the museum, so restating it here at length would be redundant, but a brief summation will provide context. Originally founded in 1887, the Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology, as it was first called, opened to the public in 1889. The museum’s mission from the beginning was a combination of archaeological and anthropological research through its own expeditions and fieldwork, teaching University of Pennsylvania students, and educating the general public. In 1891, missionaries were the first to enrich the collection with works from Africa: That year 117 works from Gabon were donated to the museum by the Reverend Robert Hamill Nassau. The second important donation was made in 1899 by an eccentric biggame hunter, Arthur Donaldson Smith. As Wardwell pointed out, most of the museum’s early African holdings were assembled by adventurers and missionaries who had gone to Africa by their own means and for their own purposes, and they collected without any scientific training. As such, their collecting practices were nonsystematic and the objects entering the museum’s collection lacked key information regarding their exact provenience and function,4 central elements to the formation of sound anthropological collections. FIG. 2: W. O. Oldman surrounded by material from New Caledonia. 1911. UPMA, Office of the Director, Correspondence Gordon-Oldman, 1911. Photograph courtesy of UPMA.
I-IVCoverT68 E_CoverF Vuvi
To see the actual publication please follow the link above