Etruscans for All: the first Etruscan collections in 19th-century North-western European museums

Good evening and welcome to the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. My name is Hamp Solson and I am a Scientific Assistant of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History here at our institute. We have reached the end of the academic year, both with our events and with the conference cycle in Etruscan Troskology, the Etruscan Salon. And for the last meeting of this series, we have a PhD researcher from our Dutch friends and relatives, Eliene Verburg, who is a PhD student at the Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam. This evening's presentation will be in English and therefore I will speak in English. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. My name is Hamp Solson and I am a Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History here at the institute. We are at the end of this series, the Salotto Etruscan Studies in Etruscan Troskology at the Swedish Institute, and at the end of the academic year 2024-2025. And for this last lecture in our lecture series, and also our last event for this academic year, we have with us tonight Eliene Verburg, who is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam. She has also a long record of being here in Italy. She was an intern at the Museo dell'Agro Vellentano, after which she wrote her master's thesis on the history of the Tomba Campana at Velli. She has also stayed in Rome for longer periods during her PhD research time at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, our neighbours here in Via Omero. Verburg's main research interest lies in the reception of the Etruscans in the 18th and 19th century North-Western Europe, which is also the topic of tonight's lecture, as well as of her ongoing PhD thesis. Etruscans for All, the first Etruscan collections in 19th century North-Western European museums. Eliene, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much for this marvellous introduction, and thank you very much for the invitation to present my PhD research here. During my stay at the Dutch Institute in Rome, I was always very happy to attend these Saluto Etrusco lecture sequences, so it's really nice to be here tonight. Today I would like to tell you a little bit more about my PhD research, which I am about to finish this summer. It is titled Etruscans for All, the reception and perception of the Etruscans in 18th and 19th century North-Western Europe. This research started with the stipendium of the National Museum of Antiquities, which I received in 2018, to study the Corazzi collection, the Etruscan collection of that museum. Just imagine, it was the first Etruscan collection outside of Italy, north of the Alps, and what they saw for the first time were objects like this, and this, this, and this. Objects that they had never seen before, extraordinary objects that were completely new to the eye. And I started questioning myself, why was this Dutch museum so interested in the Etruscans? Why did they spend so much time and so much money on specifically an Etruscan collection? So this needs a little bit of further context, because until the end of the 18th century, Etruscology used to be a very Italian, a very local phenomenon. So the first Etruscan collections were assembled in Italy, and also the first Etruscan academy, the Accademia Etrusca di Cortona, was established there. At the end of the 18th century, this changed, and interest spread across the Alps to the northwestern part of Europe. In the 1820s, interest emerged to such an extent that also northwestern European museums, and sometimes national museums, started to purchase Etruscan collections. And in some cases, they were prepared to put down large amounts of money for them. So this brings me to my research question. Why did the northwestern European interest in the Etruscan culture emerge in the late 18th and 19th centuries? And how can this phenomenon be understood against the background of the scholarly, cultural, and geopolitical developments in that period? So, as a case study, I am comparing four different northwestern European museums and their Etruscan collections. These are the Louvre in Paris, the Altes Museum in Berlin, the British Museum in London, and the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. And through archival research in the archives of these museums, I try to discover their motivations to purchase these Etruscan collections, in order to eventually say something about the reception of the Etruscans in general in northwestern Europe. And for this archival research, I based myself on legal documents, but also letters, personal notes, travel journals, travel guides, financial documents, newspapers, and magazines. And why is this interesting research? Why do we have to research this? There has always been a very complicated relationship between the Etruscans and the more traditional civilizations of Greece and Rome. This is partially because of how Winkelmann wrote about the Etruscans. He wrote that they were only copying Greek art, and that they were not original. And also because of the dilemma of the Etruscan vases. For a very long time, people thought that the vases that were found in Etruscan tombs were actually produced by Etruscans, but they appeared to be of Greek production and already imported in ancient times. Furthermore, despite the enthusiasm with which the Etruscan culture was welcomed in northwestern Europe in the late 18th and 19th centuries, they never became part of the traditional historiography of Europe. And it is therefore interesting to investigate the reason for that. Adding to that, also the unclear Etruscan origins have always been used as an opportunity for flexibility and appropriation. And since only very few texts written by the Etruscans have been preserved, much has been said about them, but they were never really able to speak for themselves. So, in this presentation, I will share some preliminary results, especially from the archival research, and we will start with the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, in the Netherlands. So, the National Museum of Antiquities purchased two Etruscan collections, the Georgie collection, which consisted of six cinerary urns, so it was very small, and the Corazzi collection, on which I will focus now. In the archives, many letters from the museum's first director, Caspar Reufens, have been preserved, and at least one of them shows a preference for objects with Etruscan writings. So, in 1826, Reufens wrote to Humbert, who was his middleman at that time, that he wished for objects especially with Etruscan writings, or with the representation of the genius with a stone axe or hammer. Bronzes, if pretty, and preferably objects that the museum does not possess yet, especially decorated bowls, mythical mirrors, and mystic cases. Lamps, only pretty, and preferably made of pretty bronze. Greek vases, so-called Etruscan, only if large and with remarkable representations. So, this small citation shows that the Etruscan language was important. This is also underlined by a list of books that Reufens possessed, which shows that most books he owned on the Etruscans were books on Etruscan inscriptions, and on the Etruscan language. Reufens' interest in the Etruscan language might have been influenced by the time he spent in Paris, between 1811 and 1814, where he took classes in philology by Jean-Francois Poissonnade, and where he corresponded with philologist and cosmopolitan Carl August Böttinger. Perhaps also the discovery of the Indo-European language played a part. In the Netherlands, and especially in Leiden, the academic environment focused on linguistic analysis and philology, and at the start of the 19th century, Indo-European studies even became an academic discipline there. Furthermore, the fact that the Etruscans had their own script proved that they were civilized, and that they could be identified as a civilization. We will get back to that later. Reufens was a very lucky man, because he wished for objects with Etruscan writings, and the Corazzi collection crossed his path. This collection contains many bronze figurines with also a lot of Etruscan writings, a lot of Etruscan inscriptions on them. Eventually, the Corazzi collection was purchased for the National Museum of Antiquities for 33,000 guilders, which was quite a lot at that time. There is another important find from the archives, which is a letter from Reufens to Van Eywijk at the Ministry. He writes, But since no study is aroused or vigorously continued in archaeology nowadays without the objects themselves, it would be both useful and glorious to have a decent collection of that kind in the Museum of Leiden. This quote or fragment shows that Leiden followed the tradition of the German academic world. Reufens took classes from Christian Gottlieb Heine, and we can see in this his idea of Attertumswissenschaft, in which archaeology, philology and art history and other disciplines were combined. So in contrast to past studies, in which antiquity was purely studied on the basis of classical texts, multiple disciplines were combined to study the antiquity as a whole. It became therefore necessary to study the physical objects in combination with classical texts. But more motivations are mentioned. Reufens is also very much aware of the Edito Pacca, so that's the first heritage law that was started by the Papal States. And it became more and more difficult to export archaeological objects from the Italian peninsula. So Reufens is aware of this and he sees the Corazzi collection as a very rare opportunity to still obtain Etruscan objects in the Netherlands. And another aspect is that of competition among nation-states, among museums and the new nation-states. In a letter from Humbert to the Ministry, he writes that the Corazzi collection is a purchase which provides the government with a collection of Etruscan antiquities, rivaling those of the Gallery of Florence and having no equal in other museums of Europe. So in Leiden we see an interest in the Etruscan language, which can be connected to defining the Etruscans as a civilization. Another motivation is obtaining physical objects in order to study them in line with the Altertumswissenschaft, which is new at that time. But also the current climate in which the Papal States increasingly protect their antiquities plays a role, and the competition between other museums in Europe. So that brings us to our second case study, which is the Antique Ensemble in Berlin. And before I start, it is important to say that there is a large difference between Berlin and the other museums, because the Etruscans were already very present in Berlin in the 18th and 19th centuries. So in 1698 the Bellori collection was already purchased, which also included Etruscan objects, among which this beautiful Antefix of Juno Sospita. And the gem collection of Baron Philipp von Stoch was also purchased by Friedrich II in 1764. Apart from that, Karl-Otfried Muller published his book on the Etruscans already in 1828, which was quite early already. And this was really seen as the most important larger work on the Etruscans since De Etruria Regali by Thomas Dempster. So we can say that Berlin was already a little bit ahead compared to the other museums. The key actor in the Altes Museum was Eduard Gerhard. He was the archaeologist and curator of the Altes Museum, who had a personal interest in the Etruscans. And as one of the founders of the Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica in Rome, he undertook several travels to central Italy, where he purchased Etruscan antiquities, among which Etruscan mirrors, which he collected and published in Etruscische Spiegel, a precursor of the Corpus Beculorum Etruscorum. And his life work was the so-called Archeologisches Apparat, which was best described as a didactic reference work containing drawings of numerous archaeological objects. So Greek vases, mural paintings from Pompeii, drawings of tomb plants, and also the Etruscans were very well represented in this Apparat, as you can see from the three examples that I put here on the slide. So it includes drawings of Greek vases, but also of Etruscan cinerary urns. And here we have a beautiful example of the Tomba del Tifone. So how do we have to interpret this Apparat, this didactic reference work? So this is something that I've been thinking of for quite a while. Perhaps it can be seen as a kind of methodological tool to realize the material philology that was originally envisaged by Auguste Böck, who was convinced that classicists needed to look beyond the text and promoted a material philology. We can therefore say that classical philology was the basis of Gerhard's research. And that mythological interpretation was more important to him than questions regarding the historical and artistic value of an object, find location or context. So his focus was on art history, and this is reflected as well in the types of objects that he was interested in. So he purchased a remarkably high amount of Etruscan mirrors, which have mythological representations on the back. A lot of cinerary urns, which are also decorated with mythological scenes. And vases from Brutii, also with mythological representations. And since these mythological scenes were mainly scenes from Greek mythology, one can wonder whether his interest was pointed at the Etruscans, or that he was actually interested in the connection that could be made through the Etruscans with Greek art, and that Greek art was actually his main goal. So this would actually be in line with Winkelmann, who had written in his Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums that classical Greece was the pinnacle of civilizations, and that the Greeks produced the most beautiful art. And this is underlined by the introduction of one of his publications, Etruskische und Kampanische Wasenbilder. He writes, for example, A few years after the beginning of that great Etruscan discovery, to which Greek art and mythology owe so many new insights, a considerable number of the vases of which we are speaking were brought to light in illustrations. So he's really actually using the Etruscan art and mythological scenes to understand Greek art and culture better. So the third case study is the British Museum. And the first Etruscan collection to be purchased by the British Museum was the famous Campanari collection. And the Campanari family was a family from Rome that was involved in excavations and traded in antiquities as well. And it was Carlo Campanari, one of the three brothers, who came up with the idea to organize an exhibition on Etruscan tombs in London, on Palma, which is a street where a lot of galleries and auction houses are located. And this exhibition of reconstructions of Etruscan tombs, with facsimiles on the walls and authentic objects like sarcophagi, bronzes and buccal vessels inside, opened in 1837 in February and was an amazing success. And these are, I think, two of the three remaining illustrations of this exhibition in London, where you can see that the wall paintings, they are facsimiles, but the objects are original Etruscan objects. So we see these very large, very heavy sarcophagi, and we see some buccal vessels on the wall and some bronze objects as well. So the aim of this exhibition was actually to sell these objects to the British Museum. But Campanari was not so lucky. The trustees of the British Museum were not interested. They also didn't have any money. So it was very difficult for him to sell his collection, and it was also too expensive to actually import everything back to Italy. So he had a big problem. And so what he did, he made a kind of portfolio, that was what I was looking for, in which he put all recommendation letters, petitions, everything to convince the trustees to buy his Etruscan collection. And of course, that was really nice for me, because this book is still in the archives and it contains a lot of information. Apart from that volume, there are also the minutes of the British Museum trustees, the report of Edward Hawkins, who was the keeper of the Department of Antiquities at that time, an exhibition guide on the exhibition in Palma, a newspaper review, and this is my favorite, the petition. Yeah, there it is. So this petition reads, We, the undersigned, having visited the Etruscan tombs exhibited at 121 Palma, are highly satisfied with them and should be much pleased at their being acquired by the British Museum for universal advantage and construction. So I imagine Campanari, at the exit of his exhibition on Palma, asking important men to sign this paper. And there were actually three of these in that volume, this is just one of them. So when we take a closer look to the archival material, some aspects stand out. So in the trustee minutes is written by Edward Hawkins, the keeper of the antiquities, a collection of Etruscan antiquities belonging to Signora Campanari of great rarity and forming an important link in the series of ancient sculpture. So especially this important link in the series of ancient sculpture is interesting. And the second one is from a report that Edward Hawkins wrote on the collection. That report has not been preserved, but fortunately it was leaked to the newspaper, to the Morning Herald, through which I was able to kind of find it back. So it says, such sarcophagi are extremely rare in any country. The British Museum does not possess one. The sculptures with which they are adorned furnish an interesting link in the history of the schools of different nations and supply a great deficiency in the museum series of ancient monuments. And the final is from the exhibition guide by Sir William Betham, a scholar, who writes that the collection supplies evidence of the state of civilization and the arts in Italy at a period when Rome was in her infancy and her power confined to the limits of her city walls or at most to the banks of the Tiber and of a people whose language has been considered an impenetrable and unapproachable mystery. So here we see that especially this important link in the series of ancient sculpture is very important, but also the rarity of the objects outside of Italy and also the connection with the schools of different nations and the high state of the Etruscan civilization is mentioned. So the link in the series of ancient sculpture is emphasized and I found that somehow surprising because the Etruscan sculpture was not necessarily considered as extremely beautiful at that time, but rather clumsy and unfinished. And in Leiden there is also a case where the scenery urns arrive and then the director actually thinks that they are fakes because they are so ugly. But perhaps this fitted perfectly in the idea of a sequence of art and civilizations in which the Etruscans were positioned after the Egyptians and before the Greeks. So their art therefore had to be of a minor quality compared to Greek art. And I think that this watercolor painting of James Stefanoff illustrates this very well, where they also try to show this kind of sequence of civilizations and of the arts. This was commissioned by the British Museum, so you really see the Etruscan... So you really see the facsimiles actually from the Campanari exhibition and also the sarcophagi that come from this Campanari collection. Interesting is that the Greek faces are here still displayed as Etruscan, but it starts with Asian art and it goes to Egyptian art over here. Then we get the Etruscans and then we go to Greece, and this is the Temple of Papaya. And then we have at the top the Elgin marbles. So they were really looking for this sequence of civilizations and the position of the Etruscans in this. Final case study. So when we look at the Louvre, we can point out three collections that contain Etruscan objects. The Duran collection, the Michaili collection and the Campana collection. And the last one stands out for its quantity and its purchase history. And it is also the collection whose documentation provides clear motivations for the purchase of especially Etruscan objects. So for the sake of time, I will only talk about the Campana collection now. So the Campana collection was assembled by Giovanni Pietro Campana in the 19th century. Some of you might know it very well. And after being confiscated by the Papal States due to Campana's illegal actions, it was resold in smaller parts, of which the largest part was sold eventually to the Louvre. And this collection contained many Etruscan objects, among which the sarcophagus of the spouses, which you saw on the other slide, so-called Campana plates, and many examples of Etruscan jewelry. And on a side note, it also contained many forgeries, many pastiches, so objects that were put together from multiple objects, very heavy restorations. And on this slide, you see a picture of Campana's house. And this is his house at the Lateran Palace. So he had multiple houses in Rome, and they were all stacked with antiquities. So one document is very important to understand the motivation of the French government to purchase the Campana collection. And that is this document that you see over here from the National Archives. It is a legal document that expresses a clear preference and motivation for the purchase of this collection, and especially for the Etruscan objects that it contains. So, in short, the document was ordered by the emperor, Napoleon III, and substantiates the purchase of the Campana collection. Although the collection also contained Renaissance paintings, Majolica, Roman objects, etc., the document specifically mentions the Etruscans in general and the Etruscan objects in the collection, of which I would like to show some examples. So first, the document says that it is due to the assemblage of Etruscan objects that the Musee Campana has conquered such an important status in Europe. And second, the advancement of the Etruscans in the arts is mentioned, and their intermediate position between the civilizations of Asia and Greece. So it states, and the Etruscan nation is particularly interesting from this point of view, both for its advancement in the arts as for its intermediate position between the civilizations of Asia and Greece. It forms one of these links in this chain of beliefs, symbols and arts, whose origin remains hidden from scientific research, whose first traces appear in Egypt and Assyria, which is modified in the Phoenician monuments and in the necropolises of Etruria, to finally burst forth in all its splendor under the sovereign influence of Greek and Roman genius. So again, this position of the Etruscans as a missing link in this sequence of civilizations is stressed. And this development is seen as a cultural progress that led towards the pinnacle of ancient history, Greece and Rome. And then another more surprising aspect is emphasized, because the Etruscan objects are seen as models for artists and the industry. So the study of these admirable models, assembled at great expense by Campana, has renewed the art of jewelry in Rome. It is to be presumed that our skillful workers will quickly overcome the practical difficulties raised by the imitation of ancient procedures, and that their battle with the artists of Greece and ancient Etruria will become for them the source of even a greater skill and purer taste. And that we will witness new progress in this very considerable branch of Parisian industry. And the objects here illustrate actually what the quote says. So this is one of the original pieces of jewelry that used to be in Rome in the Campana collection. And this is a reproduction by the Castellani family, which is here in the Villa Giulia in Rome. So they really got inspired by these Etruscan jewels, and actually they wish the same thing will happen in Paris. And another one, so to provide artists and even that part of the industry, which relies more particularly on the arts, with numerous and pure models, the study of which constantly revives the feeling of beauty and provides valuable assistance in supporting the superiority achieved by the French state. And last but not least, another surprising one. So to satisfy one of the most pressing intellectual needs of our century, the necessity of renewing the sources of history through the study of original monuments. So in this last example, the importance of archaeology is actually emphasised, through which history can, according to this quotation, even be renewed. So instead of a focus on classical texts and literature, the original monuments can be a source of new information. So this is again based on the tradition of material philology and altitudes. The Etruscans were the perfect case for this, since naturally there were very little textual sources that have been preserved. So if you want to discover something new about the Etruscans, you are almost forced to look at the archaeological object and its context. So to summarise, the motivations mentioned are the position of the Etruscans as a missing link between Asia and Greece, their function as pure and original models to Parisian artists, and to renew the sources of history by using original objects. So what happened to this collection after it was purchased by the French state? It was exhibited in the Musée Napoléon III in the Palais d'Industrie in Paris, and you see a picture of it over here. And from the archives, we know that Napoleon III actually wished a museum of industrial arts, similar to the South Kensington Museum in London, which is now the Victorian Albert Museum. So he wanted a place that could be an inspiration for artists, where they could be educated in the arts, in the crafts in the arts, which could stimulate the Parisian industry. And a letter in the archives says the following about the new museum. It should be especially intended to popularise the traditions of beauty, to become not a museum of luxury and choice reserved for the public alone, but a school of taste and practical teaching, a study workshop for the artist and the industrialist. So Napoleon III is already wishing for an industrial museum, and he actually finds the best opportunity in the Etruscan Campana collection, which he then exhibits in this Palais d'Industrie. So this exhibition was a great success and had a large impact on Parisian cultural life. It appeared in journals, magazines, newspapers, even in satirical magazines. And the exhibition, however, did not last very long. It only lasted, I think, nine months after it was moved back to the Louvre, where the collection was exhibited in the Campana room in the Musée Napoleon III. And this is where the collection is still housed today. So this is a picture or a painting from 1866 that shows the Etruscan Campana collection in the Louvre. And this is what it looks like nowadays. And you see from this facade that it is displayed in the same room. So this brings me to the final slide of this presentation. As I mentioned at the beginning, I am about to finish this research, but it is not finished yet. And of course, I have only told you a very small part of it during this presentation. Of course, because I hope that you will read my full dissertation once it is finished and published. So there are still some open questions, but if I have to highlight some main takeaways, then it would be the following. So every museum is very different and has its own hierarchy and has its own opportunities as well, its own motivations, but there certainly are some main lines and similarities to be found. So there is this large interest in the Etruscan language, not only because of the hope to discover something new and something more about the Etruscans, but I really think it is also connected to the necessity of defining the Etruscans as a civilization. And in almost all museums under study, the position of the Etruscans within the large narrative of sequences of civilizations is very important. And in some cases, they even speak about the Etruscans as a missing link. So there is an urge to position the Etruscans within this narrative, which is again very much based on what Winkelmann wrote. Furthermore, the relation of the Etruscans towards Greece is key. They are continuously compared with Greece and at the same time they are also used to get a better understanding of Greek art and Greek culture, especially with the example of Germany. Furthermore, the academic developments in the 19th century play a role. Through altertuneswissenschaft and material philology, classical texts become less important and the focus shifts to the study of the object itself. And with that, archaeology gains importance as an upcoming discipline. What I still find difficult is that they still are very much depending on Winkelmann, but at the same time, Winkelmann wrote relatively negatively about the Etruscans. But in all the fragments that I showed and the archival material, you still see that people are talking about the very high state of civilization of the Etruscans. So that's something that I'm not really sure about yet. And I think we have to continue asking ourselves if the interest is really in the Etruscans as a culture, or that the interest is actually in the Etruscans to be used as a kind of tool to, in the end, get to know more about ancient Greece and ancient Greek culture. So, if you have any suggestions or feedback, I would love to hear it. And thank you very much for your attention.