Augustus Wollaston Franks

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Augustus Wollaston Franks (before 1897).

Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (born March 20, 1826 in Geneva ; died May 21, 1897 in London ) was an English archaeologist .

He was from 1866 to 1896, the first curator of the Department of British antiquities and art monuments of antiquity and the Middle Ages at the British Museum in London. During those three decades, Franks became one of the most important antiquarians and collectors in the history of the British Museum. The acquisition of such extraordinary art treasures as the rune box by Auzon ("Franks Casket"), the Lothair Crystal and the Royal Gold Cup can be traced back to his tireless, passionate collecting work for the British Museum .

Life

A Book of Ornamental Glazing Quarries , title page of Frank's first publication, 1849.

Franks was the eldest son of Frederica Anne Franks and Frederick Franks, a captain in the Royal Navy . His maternal grandfather was the politician and agricultural reformer John Saunders Sebright, 7th Baronet ; his godfather was the physicist and chemist William Hyde Wollaston . Franks spent most of his childhood with his family on the European mainland. a. in Geneva and Rome . At the age of 13, in September 1839, he became a student at Eton College , where he remained until 1843. From 1845 to 1852 Frank was Trinity College of Cambridge University enrolled (Degrees: BA 1849, MA 1852).

As a student, Franks began to create his brass rubbings (abrasion copies of engravings ), v. a. of grave inscriptions and images; the later extensive collection he finally left the Society of Antiquaries . He was one of the founders of the Cambridge Architectural Society and a member of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society . From 1849, Franks concentrated his energies on the Royal Archaeological Institute, founded in 1844 . By arranging its collections for annual congresses, he laid the foundation for his knowledge of ancient and medieval art. In the same year, 1849, his first independent publication, A Book of Ornamental Glazing Quarries , appeared, a large sample collection of images of decorative, diamond-shaped panes of glass in church windows. In 1850 he supervised the first exhibition of medieval art in the rooms of the Society of Arts . These activities finally led to his first employment at the British Museum in 1851, where the antiquities of the kingdom had not yet been systematically collected. From then on until his retirement in 1896, he remained a restless collector and generous donor of the museum's collections.

Frank died in 1897 unmarried and has been on the London cemetery Kensal Green buried. His personal collections passed into the possession of the British Museum in accordance with his will, unless he had bequeathed them during his lifetime.

He was evidently aware of the fact that his extreme passion for collecting was pathological and attributed this to hereditary predisposition: His great-grandmother, Sarah Knight, was a cousin of Richard Payne Knight , another wealthy donor of the British Museum. In a manuscript, an account of his life discovered in 1983, Franks began: "Foraging is a hereditary disease and, I fear, incurable".

activities

In 1851, before completing his studies, Franks was hired as an assistant in the antiquities department of the British Museum. This position had been created for the task of building up a collection of British antiquities. Over the next 45 years of his career at the British Museum, Franks became one of the museum's major curators and collectors; For the museum historian Marjorie Caygill, Franks was "probably the most important collector in the history of the British Museum".

At the British Museum and as director of the Society of Antiquaries of London (since 1858), Franks soon became England's leading authority on all types of evidence of the early and medieval history of the British Isles, he dealt with porcelain remains, glass products and others anthropologically interesting artifacts and works of art from early and medieval British history.

From 1866 to 1896, Franks held the position at the British Museum from which he was able to fully develop his collecting and curating activities: he became head of the newly established department for British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography , since 2003 reorganized as the department for Great Britain, Europe and Prehistory (Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory) .

Franks had already become a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) in 1853 . From 1858 to 1867, when his new position as curator at the British Museum claimed him, he was its director, then again from 1873 to 1880. From 1891 until his death in 1897 Frank was President of the Society.

Important acquisitions for the British Museum

At the very beginning of his career, still as an assistant, in 1855 Franks was responsible for buying up large parts of a collection that had been put up for auction following the death of the politician and art collector Ralph Bernal and for which the government had provided a large sum of money; the most famous piece among them was the Lothair Crystal , a gem from the 9th century.

One of Frank's best-known donations to the museum was an ivory box with runic inscriptions from the 9th century, which was later named after Frank's Casket . Franks bought it himself in 1858 after the museum refused to buy it; In 1867 he donated it to the museum.

In 1892 Franks succeeded in making an acquisition of which he was particularly proud in retrospect: with the financial support of other donors and using his own fortune, he raised the sum to acquire the Royal Gold Cup by first taking over the costs himself and then the Attracted contributions from others.

Personal collections

Franks had a considerable personal fortune, with the help of which he built up his own extraordinary collection of historical art objects in parallel to the acquisitions for the British Museum. He appeared as a private collector, but sooner or later these acquisitions were also included in the museum's holdings. This resulted in an extensive collection of ceramic objects and valuable objects of medieval art, but Franks' collection also contained many pieces from the Oxus treasure ; Franks built up the latter part of his collection through contacts with dealers in India and through the purchase of Alexander Cunningham's collection . His friendship with John Warren also led him to build up an extensive collection of bookplates in his later years , which after his death also went to the British Museum.

In total, Franks personally donated more than 25,000 items to the collections of the British Museum during his life and with his estate; also a bundle of around 70,000 printed ephemera (including more than 50,000 bookplates).

Images (selection)

In view of the sheer abundance and thematic breadth of Frank's acquisitions and foundations, the following selection of images cannot be anywhere near exemplary; it merely tries to convey an associative impression of the breadth of his activities and his interests.

The most famous acquisitions for the British Museum

Foundations (selection)

  • 3 silver spoons, Roman Empire, 5th century (foundation 1897).

  • Carriages and handlebars (from the Oxus treasure ), Middle East, 4th – 6th centuries Century BC u. Z. (Foundation 1897).

  • Young Hercules, Rome, 2nd century (foundation 1895).

  • Host container ( pyxis ), Spain, around 800 (foundation 1897).

  • Kanne, China, around 1600 (Foundation 1886).

  • Triple portrait of Cardinal Richelieu , Philippe de Champaigne , Paris, around 1642 (donated to the National Gallery in 1869).

Honors

  • Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA), 1853 (President 1891–97)
  • Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), 1874
  • Honorary Doctorate from Cambridge University, 1889
  • Honorary Doctorate from Oxford University , 1895
  • Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), 1888
  • Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), 1894

Publications

Franks' most important publications were:

literature

Web links

Commons : Augustus Wollaston Franks  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Biographical presentation in this section based on Read 1901 ( DNB entry). Read was a student of A. W. Franks and was later his successor in positions at the British Museum and at the Society of Antiquaries , cf. Henry Balfour's obituary : Obituary, Sir Charles Hercules Read, 6 July 1857 - 11 February 1929 . In: Man (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland), Volume 29 (April 1929), pp. 61 f. ( JSTOR 2790450 ). Data in this section according to Venn 1944 ( Alumni Cantabrigienses ).
  2. ↑ Lee-Dillon 1898 (Proceedings) , p. 149.
  3. ^ Marjorie Caygill: Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (online course, Session 3); accessed October 8, 2019.
  4. ^ Marjorie Caygill: Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (online course, Session 3); accessed October 8, 2019.
  5. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ).
  6. ^ British Museum, History of the collection: Britain, Europe & Prehistory ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  7. ↑ Lee-Dillon 1898 (Proceedings) , p. 149.
  8. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ).
  9. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ).
  10. ^ The Lothair Crystal , British Museum (data sheet); accessed October 8, 2019.
  11. ^ The Franks Casket / The Auzon Casket , British Museum (data sheet); accessed October 8, 2019.
  12. ^ Marjorie Caygill: Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (online course, Session 3); accessed October 8, 2019.
  13. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ).
  14. ^ The Royal Gold Cup , British Museum (data sheet); accessed October 8, 2019.
  15. ^ Marjorie Caygill: Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (online course, Session 3); accessed October 8, 2019.
  16. ^ Marjorie Caygill: Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (online course, Session 3); accessed October 8, 2019.
  17. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ).
  18. ↑ Read 1901 ( DNB ); Lee-Dillon 1898 (Proceedings) , p. 153.
  19. ↑ The first volume (of three) of the catalog of this collection can give an impression of its scope; s. E. R. J. Gambier Howe: Franks Bequest. Catalog of British and American Book Plates, Bequeathed to the Trustees of the British Museum by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks , London 1903 ( digitized fromhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dfranksbequestcat01brituoft~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Di~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3DDigitalisat~PUR%3D the Internet Archive ; accessed October 8, 2019).
  20. ^ List of objects donated by Franks, British Museum database; accessed October 8, 2019.
  21. ^ Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks , British Museum datasheet with a brief appraisal of the activity and bibliographical information; accessed October 8, 2019.
  22. ↑ British Museum, 1867,0120.1 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  23. ↑ British Museum, 1855,1201.5 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  24. ↑ British Museum, 1892,0501.1 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  25. ↑ British Museum, AF.375 , AF.376 , AF.377 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  26. ↑ British Museum, 1897,1231.7 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  27. ↑ British Museum, 1895,0408.1 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  28. ↑ British Museum, AF.3041 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  29. ↑ British Museum, Franks.853 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  30. ↑ National Gallery, NG798 ; accessed October 8, 2019.
  31. ↑ this and the following data from Venn 1944 ( Alumni Cantabrigienses ) .
  32. ↑ after Read 1901 ( DNB ).
personal data
SURNAME Franks, Augustus Wollaston
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franks, Augustus W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English archaeologist and curator of the British Museum
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1897
Place of death London