Eugene von Guérard and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin: Correspondence 1878–1880

Abstract

This paper details the correspondence between nineteenth-century landscape painter Eugene von Guérard and the Ethnological Museum, Berlin. It includes complete translations of the relevant correspondence from Old German script. The letters contain information on the provenance of the collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural possessions that von Guérard sold to Berlin, as well as documentation of the items purchased by him on behalf of the museum. They record unexpected cross-cultural exchanges, document the building of individual and institutional collections of First Nations’ cultural belongings in colonial Victoria and they trace the people and processes involved in the transfer of this collection to a major German museum. The information recorded in the letters has the potential to inform the process of reconnecting specific objects with source communities.