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Our Dark Materials: Rediscovering an Egyptian Collection

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.

 

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  1. (1842-1930)

    The Egyptologist Émile Brugsch served as assistant curator of the Boulaq Museum in Luxor, Egypt, under Gaston Maspero. Brugsch later became Director of the museum, which eventually moved to Cairo to form the core collection of the current Egyptian Museum. Brugsch's older brother, Heinrich Brugsch, was the more prominent Egyptologist. Émile Brugsch had been a saloon keeper in America, among other pursuits; his photographic skill was perhaps more relevant to his new profession in Egypt. He is known for his role as middleman between foreign collectors and Cairo-based dealers and museums with antiquities to sell. It is this role that connects him to Stanford: Émile Brugsch liaised between Jane Stanford and N. D. Kyticas and selected the antiquities included in that sale. Stanford may have met Brugsch through their mutual acquaintance, Chauncey Murch. Brugsch also sold her some of his wife's Egyptian collection. Brugsch was granted the honorific "Bey" by the government of Ottoman Egypt, an association so strong it is treated as part of his name in some of Stanford's records.

  2. (1832-1892)

    Anna Hewes, Jane Stanford's sister, may have influenced the latter's interest in Egyptian travel. Hewes visited the country with her husband David Hewes in 1890 during an eighteen-month long grand tour taken after their 1889 wedding. The couple made the acquaintance of Émile Brugsch, who helped them acquire Egyptian antiquities as souvenirs of their trip. Anna Hewes bequeathed an Egyptian collection to Stanford's University Museum upon her death in 1892. It included pieces acquired from her own 1890 trip and the trip David Hewes took with his first wife, Matilda Hewes, in 1877.

  3. (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.

  4. (1856-1907)

    Reverend Chauncey Murch was Director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, Egypt, for around 25 years. An antiquarian, collector, and middleman in the trade, he supplied Egyptian antiquities to museums and assisted private collectors during their time in Egypt. Jane Stanford and Bertha Berner met Murch and his family in Luxor in 1901, staying with them again in 1904. Murch served as a personal guide and helped Stanford select and aquire antiquities for the Stanford Museum. Murch later corresponded with Stanford. He served as an intermediary in her Egyptian collecting, introducing her to Émile Brugsch.

  5. (1846-1916)

    Gaston Maspero was among the most powerful figures in early Egyptology. He served as Director of the Egyptian Museum, where Émile Brugsch was his assistant curator. He eventually became Director of the Antiquities Service, authorizing excavations by Bernard Grenfell, Arthur Hunt, William Petrie, Henri Naville, and many others. He also found time to write an encyclopedic history of Egyptian civilization, edited by linguist Archibald Sayce. He was known for his exceptional understanding of ancient Egyptian language and writing, as well as for his efforts to weaken the illegal trade in Egyptian antiquities. In 1901, Maspero authenticated the Stanford Museum's N. D. Kyticas collection, which Jane Stanford had purchased in 1901 in Cairo. Maspero judged them to be "worthy to be exhibited in any Museum of Europe or America."

  6. (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.

  7. (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.

  8. (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.

  9. (fl. 1887-1911)

    A dealer named Mohammed Ali el Gabri sold artifacts to Jane Stanford in Cairo during her 1903/1904 winter trip to Egypt. His family was a clan of well-known Egyptian dealers and excavators. Many members were active in Cairo and Giza in the period Stanford University was accumulating its institutional collections. Stanford most likely dealt with Mohammed Ali, son of Ali Abd el-Haj el-Gabri (sometimes known as Ali el-Arabi). The latter was among the most active professional antiquities dealers to keep a shop near the Giza pyramids in the Bedouin village Kafr el-Haram, a well-known (and well-frequented) center for the trade in looted antiquities. Mohammed Ali el Gabri signed a document guaranteeing that all the items he sold to Stanford were genuine.
  10. Mrs. Émile Brugsch was married to one of the most active figures in turn of the century Egyptology. She spent time in Egypt with her husband and was part of the scholarly social scene there, appearing in an 1881 travelogue as a party guest on a dahabeah (boat) on the Nile. She reportedly left Brugsch in the late 1890s. They may have repaired their relationship, or Émile Brugsch may have been a crafty salesman, as he wrote to Jane Stanford in 1901 that his wife "does not want to keep on buying, prices have gone up so high, and herself therefore having lost all pleasure." Brugsch sold 273 items from his wife's collection to Jane Lathrop Stanford for the University Museum in 1901. In a 1902 letter to Brugsch, Jane Stanford mentions "the illness" of Mrs. Brugsch and, perhaps knowingly, hopes they will be soon settled together again in their home in Cairo with "the peace of God in their hearts."
  11. N. D. Kyticas has not been identified. However, other members of the Kyticas family were known antiquities dealers in Cairo. Panayotis Kyticas was a well-connected Greek antiquities dealer operating in Cairo, Egypt during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He specialized in Greek and Roman period Egyptian items. Kyticas's shop was advantageously located next to the famous Shepheard's Hotel and operating as early as 1879. His son Denis Panayotis Kyticas took over his father's business when Panayotis died in 1924. Émile Brugsch served as an intermediary between Kyticas and Jane Stanford. Stanford's Kyticas collection was authenticated in 1901 by Gaston Maspero, who judged it to be “worthy to be exhibited in any Museum of Europe or America." In 1917, Archibald Sayce also pronounced it a fine collection, although unfortunately seriously damaged by the 1906 earthquake.

  12. (1859-1936)

    Timothy Hopkins was a protégé of Jane and Leland Stanford and an influential early Stanford University trustee. He also was a keen collector and acquired cultural items from around the world for the growing collections of the University Museum. Hopkins subscribed to the Egypt Exploration Fund. He joined in 1900 or 1901 by paying $125 for a “life membership.” The EEF sent him many items, anticipating they would be donated to Stanford's museum. Hopkins also took at least two trips to Egypt and likely purchased items there. His handwritten journal mentions stays at the iconic Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo in both 1892/1893 and 1928.

  13. (1833-1887)

    Matilda Hewes was David Hewe's first wife. Matilda and David visited Egypt after they were married in 1877 as part of a two and a half year grand tour. While there, the couple met the influential early Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch, who helped them acquire Egyptian antiquities as souvenirs of their trip. After she died, at least some of Gray Hewes' Egyptian artifacts passed to David Hewes' second wife, Anna Hewes, who was Jane Stanford's sister. Anna Hewes bequeathed her Egyptian collection to Stanford University when she died.

  14. (1954-2009)

    Herbert Nash was hired by Leland and Jane Stanford to tutor Leland Stanford Jr., a post he held until the boy's death in 1884 at the age of fifteen. Nash wrote a laudatory biography of the young man, In Memoriam: Leland Stanford, Jr. It includes information about Leland Jr.'s travels and emerging interests in archaeology and antiquities. Nash also wrote a short, descriptive guide to the Leland Jr. "Museum" (as the boy called the installation of his collections in his parents' San Francisco mansion), which was recreated in the memorial rooms of the University Museum when it opened in 1893.

  15. (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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