Ethnography Collections, University College London

The Ethnography Collections, University College London. The Ethnography Collections, University College London.

The Ethnography Collections of the Department of Anthropology, University College London, were established together with the foundation of the Department of Anthropology, in 1945. Much of the collection was donated in the mid-twentieth century and acquired during fieldwork by staff, notably by Prof. Daryll Forde, who established the department.

The collection was further added to between 1949-1960, when the Henry Wellcome Non-Medical collection was broken up and items of an ethnographic nature were offered to other museums, including the UCL. By the beginning of the twenty-first century the collection consisted of about 2500 objects, mainly from the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The number of textiles in the collection is not high, but of particular interest with respect to decorative needlework.

There is, among others, a late nineteenth century Mahdi officer’s tunic (I.0076), with patchwork pockets, etc.

Digital sources:

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 25tzh May 2016)

GVE

Last modified on Sunday, 11 June 2017 14:36