Provenance Research Oceania Collection Eugen and Antonie Brandeis (Ethnological Collection)

The ethnological collection of the Museum Natur und Mensch of the Städtische Museen Freiburg i. Br. (STM) preserves over 20,000 objects from Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and Africa, which have been collected since the museum was founded in 1895. This makes it one of the largest municipal ethnological collections in Germany and a central institution in Baden- Württemberg. In order to promote its transparency, a digitization project was implemented in 2017/2018 to publish the Oceania collection in the STM’s online collection. During the project, the entire Oceania collection (2,952 objects) was physically assessed in the depot for the first time, the database entries were revised, and potential approaches for primary research of the collection’s provenances were determined. The inspection of the collection and its available documentation showed that more than 1,200 objects came to the museum between 1895 and 1918, i.e. during the era of German colonial rule in Oceania. A significant part of these is a collection of around 300 mostly Micronesian objects that the former imperial governor, Eugen Brandeis, and his wife, Antonie, collected mainly on the Marshall Islands and Nauru and donated to the then Museum für Natur- und Völkerkunde in 1900/1901. The aim of the research project was, on the one hand, to examine this collection from an ethno-historical point of view; ideally in cooperation with representatives and stakeholders from the source communities. On the other hand, it was about re-evaluating the biographies and collecting activities of Eugen and Antonie Brandeis. Particular attention was paid to Antonie, who was mostly responsible for collecting but remained largely in the shadow of her influential husband. With this twofold approach, the project contributed to the critical re-examination of German museum collections from colonial contexts and the lives and work of representatives of the German Empire.

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