Out of Borneo - Provenance and Materiality of Objects from Borneo in the Wunderkammer at the Halle Orphanage: International Comparative Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33736/jbk.11876.2025Keywords:
Cultural Heritage; Ethnology; International Collaboration; Object Histories; Provenance ResearchAbstract
The Wunderkammer of the Francke Foundations (Halle, Germany) is an 18th-century museum space. However, the collection also possesses a vibrant and evolving history in the 19th century. This includes the fascinating and complex story of objects from Borneo, sent to Halle in the 1840s – a history now situated within current scholarly debates and postcolonial research. A project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation is conducting an in-depth provenance study of these objects between 2023 and 2026. On 2 April 2025, an international workshop brought together experts from institutions in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia to share research findings and perspectives on Bornean collections held in various countries, as well as on the broader history of collecting objects from Borneo. The workshop explored specific themes and research questions concerning individual collection items, focusing on their original meanings and uses, as well as their significance within the history of collecting in Borneo. These discussions enabled the identification of connections among the various collections, within which the objects housed in the Wunderkammer of the Francke Foundations can be situated as part of one of the earliest known collections.
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