Initial Check: Collectibles from Colonial Contexts

The Brentanohaus in Oestrich-Winkel was acquired by the State of Hesse from its last owners, Baron Udo and Baroness Angela von Brentano, after having been in the family’s possession for over 200 years. Since then, it has been managed by the State Castles and Gardens of Hesse. It is run by a non-profit society that is comprised in equal parts of the municipality of Oestrich-Winkel and the Freies Deutsches Hochstift.

The context of this estate is primarily comprises literature and art of the Romantic Period. However, a significant exception is the so-called “Egyptian Cupboard”, which is filled objects of non-European origin. This extremely heterogeneous collection of 116 objects appears to originate largely from Egypt, the Near East, and Africa, and can best be interpreted as travel souvenirs of the Brentano family. Modern reproductions and clearly ancient artefacts are mixed together in this context. The remit of this project is to carry out a detailed documentation of the objects, accurately date and geographically localise them, and, as far as possible, reconstruct their location and ownership histories. In doing so, the project also intends to identify potential illegally traded objects, which in former times comprised a significant proportion of the “souvenirs” from these parts of the world.

The objects comprise statues/statuettes, oil lamps, jewellery, clothing, parchments, ceramics, weapons, coins, bone, and plant material. Several mummified remains are also present, including probably the most sensitive object in the collection: a small, probably human, hand. Moreover, due to the mummification being only partially intact, it is in a suboptimal condition. The investigation of this object must naturally be carried out with utmost care – both from a practical point of view (an in situ stabilisation is required) as well as in a culturally sensitive manner.

A brief preliminary view of the “Egyptian Cupboard” in the remit of this project already allows some observations to be made regarding particular objects. For example, the upper part of a painted wooden Egyptian sarcophagus, in all probability dating to before the Common Era, was clearly relatively recently separated from the rest of the artefact. This is another example of an object in poor condition, as the painting requires prompt restoration. A small dagger, which is described on an accompanying tag as an “Islamic bread knife” with an “Arabic” inscription, in reality shows an as yet unidentified script. This appears to belong to an Early Arabian language, which would make this dagger older than the advent of Islam. Finally, five of the six coins from the Arabic-speaking world were dated based on their inscriptions. They were all minted between 1808 and 1839 AD (1223-1255 H), corresponding with the reign of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire.

As well as photographs and descriptions, we intend to use laser-scanned 3-D models of these objects to aid their documentation. These would be used both for research purposes as well as to disseminate the results of this work to a broad audience. Furthermore, we endeavour to 3-D print these models to create physical objects that could be used for teaching purposes. This would also enable the easy and quick sharing of this collection digitally with colleagues based in the relevant countries when we make our initial contacts.

Concurrent with the complete documentation of the artefacts, we will be researching the archives of the Brentano household to search for indications of object provenances. These archives comprise travel diaries, tickets, photos, postcards, etc., which are currently being stored at at least four different locations. Thus, we hope to be able to reconstruct a complete provenance history for at least some of the objects in question. The planned lectures to disseminate these results will be actively shared within the diaspora communities of the Frankfurt area, as well as possibly feature the online participation of research institutes of the relevant countries.

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