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Our Dark Materials: Rediscovering an Egyptian Collection

Harry Claude Peterson

(1876-1941)

Harry Peterson was appointed by Jane Stanford to be the first curator of the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum, by then known as the Stanford University Museum of Fine Arts, in 1899. He held the position until 1917. Peterson organized the museum, including the Egyptian Gallery, during its formative period and is responsible for the first catalogue of museum holdings, made in 1916-1917. He corresponded with many donors, including Heywood Seton-Karr. Peterson loved history, especially California history, and was an important figure in American museology, but he was not a trained historian, art historian, or archaeologist. His artifact identifications are likely informed by first-hand knowledge of collections provenance and institutional history.

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(1859-1938)
The British soldier, explorer, and amateur archaeologist Heywood Seton-Karr was particularly interested in stone tool technologies. He located "lost" flint mines in the eastern Egyptian desert, excavating extensive extraction and processing sites near Fayum and at Wadi El-Sheikh “with the help of H. E. Johnson and the Arabs in 1896.” Harry Peterson, Stanford's first museum curator, wrote to Seton-Karr thanking him for his "especially valuable" contribution, sharing "Mrs. S [Jane Stanford] often speaks of the interest shown by you in sending the implements to a museum so far distant."
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1. Harry Claude Peterson
  (1876-1941)
  Harry Peterson was appointed by Jane Stanford to be the first curator of the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum, by then known as the Stanford University Museum of Fine Arts, in 1899. He held the position until 1917. Peterson organized the museum, including the Egyptian Gallery, during its formative period and is responsible for the first catalogue of museum holdings, made in 1916-1917. He corresponded with many donors, including Heywood Seton-Karr. Peterson loved history, especially California history, and was an important figure in American museology, but he was not a trained historian, art historian, or archaeologist. His artifact identifications are likely informed by first-hand knowledge of collections provenance and institutional history.
2. Jane Lathrop Stanford
  (1828-1905)
  Jane Stanford supported her son Leland Stanford Jr.'s interest in archaeology and antiquities during his life and continued collecting in his memory after his death at the age of fifteen. When her husband, Leland Stanford, was alive, they both acquired and donated items from Egypt and other places for the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum. Her work continued after her husband's death, taking her on two trips to Egypt to network with dealers and acquire antiquities in person. Stanford's personal secretary, Bertha Berner, joined her for both trips: the first in 1901, the second in the winter of 1903/1904. Stanford worked closely with Harry Peterson, the first curator of the university's museum.
(1828-1905)
Jane Stanford supported her son Leland Stanford Jr.'s interest in archaeology and antiquities during his life and continued collecting in his memory after his death at the age of fifteen. When her husband, Leland Stanford, was alive, they both acquired and donated items from Egypt and other places for the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum. Her work continued after her husband's death, taking her on two trips to Egypt to network with dealers and acquire antiquities in person. Stanford's personal secretary, Bertha Berner, joined her for both trips: the first in 1901, the second in the winter of 1903/1904. Stanford worked closely with Harry Peterson, the first curator of the university's museum.
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1. Leland Stanford
  (1824-1893)
  The California politician and railroad tycoon Leland Stanford supported his son's burgeoning collecting by introducing the boy to influential curators, by supporting family travels to the East Coast and Europe, and by funding his collecting. Stanford gave his son an allowance that Leland Stanford Jr. used to purchase Egyptian antiquities, among other items. After Leland Jr.'s death in 1884, Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford, purchased Egyptian and other antiquities for the university museum they founded in their son's memory.
2. Leland Stanford Jr.
  (1868-1884)
  Born Leland DeWitt Stanford, Leland Stanford Jr. was the precocious son of Leland and Jane Stanford. He developed an early interest in archaeology, including Egyptology. Although he never traveled to Egypt himself, he purchased Egyptian antiquities from Gustave Posno and other European dealers during family trips to the continent in 1881 and 1883/1884. His tutor and biographer, Herbert Nash, describes Leland Jr. spending hours in the Egyptian Wing of the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, copying hieroglyphics and sketching artifacts. After Leland Jr.'s unexpected death in 1884 at the age of 15, his interests inspired his parents to found a museum in his honor at Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University.
3. Harry Claude Peterson
  (1876-1941)
  Harry Peterson was appointed by Jane Stanford to be the first curator of the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum, by then known as the Stanford University Museum of Fine Arts, in 1899. He held the position until 1917. Peterson organized the museum, including the Egyptian Gallery, during its formative period and is responsible for the first catalogue of museum holdings, made in 1916-1917. He corresponded with many donors, including Heywood Seton-Karr. Peterson loved history, especially California history, and was an important figure in American museology, but he was not a trained historian, art historian, or archaeologist. His artifact identifications are likely informed by first-hand knowledge of collections provenance and institutional history.
4. Bertha Berner
  (1861-1945)
  Bertha Berner was Jane Stanford's long-time private secretary and companion. She joined Stanford on her two trips to Egypt, in 1901 and the winter of 1903/1904, and can be seen in surviving photographs of the journey. Berner's journal provides some details of the party's time in Egypt. In 1935, she published a biography of Jane Stanford titled Mrs. Leland Stanford: An Intimate Account, which also describes their travels in Egypt. For example, she recounts Stanford's enthusiasm for visiting the famous sites and the assistance Chauncey Murch provided as a guide and in selecting antiquities for the University Museum.

(1876-1941)

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(1859-1938)

(1828-1905)

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(1876-1941)

(1859-1938)