Maximilian Prince of Wied-Neuwied and his Ethnographic Collection from Eastern Brazil, 1815-1817: Preliminary Notes

Maximilian Prince of Wied’s Reise nach Brasilien (1820-1821) is one of the most important accounts of travels in Brazil in the early nineteenth century and a significant source of ethnographic information on the Botocudos and their neighbors. While both Wied’s writings and drawings relating to the latter subject matter have been widely discussed and appreciated, his ethnographic collection assembled on this occasion, now mostly preserved at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, surprisingly has never received the attention it deserves as the second earliest truly ethnographic collection of Brazilian ethnography (preceded only by the Rodrigues Ferreira collection in Portugal). This preview of a more detailed discussion describes its scope and contents, the history of its collection and preservation, and its potential for a better knowledge of the historical ethnography of eastern Brazil.Maximilian Prince of Wied’s Reise nach Brasilien (1820-1821) is one of the most important accounts of travels in Brazil in the early nineteenth century and a significant source of ethnographic information on the Botocudos and their neighbors. While both Wied’s writings and drawings relating to the latter subject matter have been widely discussed and appreciated, his ethnographic collection assembled on this occasion, now mostly preserved at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, surprisingly has never received the attention it deserves as the second earliest truly ethnographic collection of Brazilian ethnography (preceded only by the Rodrigues Ferreira collection in Portugal). This preview of a more detailed discussion describes its scope and contents, the history of its collection and preservation, and its potential for a better knowledge of the historical ethnography of eastern Brazil

"Contemporary Native American Visual Arts and Identity"

This essay studies the connection between visual arts and Indian identity. The author examines how some of the developments affecting native peoples in the 1970' s and 1980 s have been mirrored in the artistic field, taking into account the fact that the American Indian Renaissance in the last three decades has been marked by an increased awareness of both tribalism and Indianness.Cet article étudie la relation entre les arts visuels et l'identité indienne. L'auteur examine comment certains aspects de l'évolution de la condition indienne au cours des années 70 et 80 trouvent leur reflet dans le domaine artistique, en tenant compte du fait que le renouveau indien de ces trois dernières décennies a été marqué par une prise de conscience accrue du tribalisme et de l'indianité.Feest Christian F. "Contemporary Native American Visual Arts and Identity". In: Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines, N°38, novembre 1988. L'indianité : contextes et perspectives. pp. 338-341

Feather Art in the European Collections

This paper surveys surviving and historically attested pieces of featherwork from Mexico in European collections from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, their evaluation by contemporary observers, and their channels of diffusion

Historical Collections Research

The paper describes experiences of the author in historical collections research since the 1960s and some methodological practices derived from it. It offers insights into the needs and opportunities of looking at museum objects as material documents of the past and at the implications for contemporary collecting and for the preservation of cultural heritage

The people of Calicut: objects, texts, and images in the Age of Proto-Ethnography

Some early sixteenth-century works by artists from southern Germany (Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair, Albrecht Altdorfer, Jörg Breu) representing the 'people of Calicut' (which was then supposed to be accessible from Europe both in an eastward and westward direction) are explored in terms of their combination of images from South Asia and artifacts from Brazil. This is placed in the context of the methodologies developed during this period for collecting and processing data in the form of texts, images, and collections of material objects, which are considered to have been the antecedents of modern ethnography and anthropology