Looting Matters: Egypt Puts Pressure on French Museum

Looting Matters: Egypt Puts Pressure on French Museum

Major Harry Hartley Southey (1871 - 1917)

A small but interesting collection of Egyptian antiques can be found at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum in Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan. This 1825 property houses a number of collections from different periods and representing several different subjects. The Egyptian display was acquired by Major Harry Hartley Southey, a member of a local newspaper family. His army career took him to Egypt where he was able to acquire a number of objects which were donated by his family after his death. The collection includes small statues, amulets, canopic chests and jars, sections of coffins, head rests and a mummy mask.

Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery Site

Other links:

• Personalities
• Cyfarthfa Castle
  

Francis Wallace Grenfell

F.W. Grenfell (1841 - 1925) was born in Maesteg House in Swansea on 29th April 1859. He served in the army in Egypt and the Sudan between 1882-9. He developed an interest in Egyptology and the collecting of antiquities and is known to have carried out excavations at Aswan. His collection of artefacts was sold at Sotheby’s 12 - 14 November 1917. There were 479 lots in the sale.

Bibliography

Dawson, W. R. & Uphill, E. (1972). Who Was Who in Egyptology. London: The Egypt Exploration Society, 125

de Watteville, H and Rev revised by Falkner, J. ‘Grenfell, Francis Wallace’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography On-Line. Accessed 24th March 2009.

Sir John Gardner Wilkinson

The grave of Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875), Egyptologist, can be found in the graveyard of Llandingat on the outskirts of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire. Wilkinson was returning from the family estate at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire.

• ODNB (Athens password required)

Image
© David Gill, 2009

Unwrapping mummies in Paris

Two mummies from the Passalacqua collection were opened in Paris in 1827. The first was in the Egyptian Galleries of the Louvre on March 12, 1827 (The Times March 16, 1827). The opening was attended by numerous dignitaries including the ambassadors of Prussia, Bavaria and Tuscany.

The second unwrapping took place at the Sorbonne on April 26 (The Times May 1, 1827). It was one of the pieces sold to the King of Prussia by Passalacqua.

Joseph Sams (1784-1860)

Sams created a collection of Egyptian antiquities during the 1820s partly during this travels. His first collection was sold to the British Museum in 1834 for £2500. A second collection pieces derived from the dispersal of the Henry Salt collection. This was the subject of Ancient Egypt. Objects of antiquity, forming part of the extensive & rich collections from ancient Egypt, brought to England by & now in the possession of J. Sams (London 1839) [WorldCat]. This was sold to Joseph Mayer of Liverpool around 1850.

Reference
M. L. Bierbrier, ‘Sams, Joseph (1784–1860)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24598]

Sydney Cockerell, Cambridge and Egyptian Antiquities

The Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating the directorship of Sydney Cockerell with an exhibition, 'I turned it into a palace' [Exhibition Catalogue].

A number of Egyptian objects feature:

• New Kingdom papyrus: Book of the Dead (E.2.1922)
• Head of Senusret III (E.37.1930)

The discussion of the antiquities includes mention of Wallis Budge who purchased on the museum's behalf. This period was dominated by Frederick William Green, honorary keeper of Egyptian Antiquities (1910-49). (His counterpart for Greek and Roman antiquities was Winifred Lamb.)

The museum's Egyptian holdings were further supplemented by the Charles Shannon bequest in 1937.