Collecting for Teaching at the Beginning of the 20th Century (20 min)

Presenters

Lynley McAlpine, San Antonio Museum of Art

Abstract

In 1901, University of Michigan professor Francis W. Kelsey carried out an extended research trip to Italy and Greece, visiting archaeological sites with Italian and American experts. One of the aims of his trip was evidently to amass a teaching collection of fragmentary ancient materials. Kelsey's approach to collecting archaeological “rubbish” differed from other types of acquisitions. During the trip, Kelsey made special plans to visit modern quarries in Greece and obtain stone samples from them. Otherwise, teaching materials were gathered by two primary methods: purchases from various people in Rome and elsewhere whose official status is unclear, and “picking up” archaeological fragments that were apparently considered debris from construction and archaeological sites. Though export to the United States was legal, the implications of these collecting methods are worth examining. How do we display and respond to such largely decontextualized materials in the setting of the university museum today? Do these fragments prompt the same ethical concerns as more complete or complex artifacts with potential to be reunited with their original context?