“In good hands”? Max Robinow and the Manchester Museum
Campbell Price, the Manchester Museum
A well-known strength of the Manchester Museum’s Egyptian and Sudanese collection is the sound
archaeological provenance of the majority of its holdings. The core of the collection was formed through
the generosity of Mancunian cotton magnate Jesse Haworth (1835-1921) and his support for the work
of W.M. Flinders Petrie. Objects from Petrie’s excavations – especially from the sites of Kahun, Gurob
and Hawara – allow the Museum’s displays to use concentrations of material to spotlight moments in
Egyptian history. Yet, Manchester also benefited from a number of donations of important objects from
less well-known private collections, largely without provenance.
The Museum’s most significant private bequest came from the family of another local businessman
named Max Emil Robinow (1846-1900). Robinow was born in Hamburg, but emigrated to England and
became a member of the Manchester shipping firm Gottschadk and Co. He became a British citizen in
1875 (Bierbrier 2012, 468). Robinow wintered in Egypt 1895-6, and competed for high-quality Egyptian
antiquities with the likes of Major William Joseph Myers, whose significant donation of objects formed
the basis for the Myers Museum at Eton College. In an entry in his diary for 18 April 1896, Myers
records:
“… to the Continental Hotel where I met [Carl] Reinhardt and Mr [Max] Robinow, a Manchester
cotton manufacturer who is here in Cairo for his health. He has begun to collect Egyptian things
and has a fine winged Isis in blue which I refused last year and Reinhardt sold to him. I much want
to get it as it belongs to the same mummy as my winged scarab. He was very polite and pleasant
and when he gets home I think he will let me have it for wh[ich] I shall be most grateful and it is
lucky that it fell into such good hands.”
Robinow agreed to sell Myers the “winged Isis”—more likely a figure of
the goddess Nut—and this in due course arrived at Eton with its
companion winged scarab (Spurr, Reeves and Quirke 2000, 42).
Unfortunately, we lack any comparative personal material from
Robinow’s perspective; this is the only glimpse (apparently) of the
collector in the act of forming his collection.
Robinow was also an associate of Petrie, although the precise nature of
their relationship is unclear. Two very fine late Fourth Century
embroideries from Akhmim had at one time belonged to Petrie, but he
later sold them to Robinow (Pritchard 2004, 9; Allgrove-McDowell 1991,
120-121). Other items – such as two painted mummy portraits – may
have come from Petrie’s Faiyum excavations, but this link is nowhere
made explicit.
After much apparent wrangling about the loan of the material to the
Manchester Museum - recorded in its Committee Minutes (Alberti 2009,
10999. Faience amulet of
Sekhmet.
122, n. 110) – the Robinow Collection was finally transferred in January 1959, just after the death of
Robinow’s son William in December 1958 (Museum Journal 1959, 110-111). A typed catalogue of the
Robinow Egyptian collection made during the 1920s lists items numbered from 1-268 and 701-789,
noting – intriguingly – that “the intervening numbers were not sent here.” If these pieces – which must
originally have been counted and presumably numbered – are not in Manchester, then where are they?
The Robinow material illustrates a range of problems
encountered when tracing acquisitions which were not
part of the known distribution system, and poses
questions about the nature of collecting in the
Nineteenth Century. Without a personal account like the
one of Major Myers, for Robinow we have the objects,
but almost nothing on the motive or the means – key
narrative points that help to contextualise ‘a collection’,
especially for a regional museum audience with interest
in a local connection. So, for example, Jesse Haworth is
synonymous with the Manchester collection and
highlights the local philanthropic context for collecting.
Indeed, some years ago his marble bust was moved from
the Egyptian galleries he helped to finance to new a
‘Manchester Gallery’, which narrates why Manchester
houses so many objects from such far-flung places in the
first place.
Another problem that arises from the Robinow collection
is the individual quality of many of his pieces. By their
nature, objects acquired by private collectors tend to be
11306. Painted mummy portrait of a
more ‘glamorous’ than those found in secure
soldier. An acquisition direct from Petrie?
archaeological settings. Robinow – like Myers and
countless others – was essentially ‘cherry-picking’ with the result that, on its own, his collection gives a
skewed picture of ancient Egypt.
Many of Robinow’s objects are display-worthy, and fill gaps in Manchester’s displays in areas Petrie’s
finds cannot cover. How, then, can museums best explain that some the prettiest objects in a case are of
less scientific value than their immediate neighbours, because of the total lack of provenance
information?
Robinow’s objects have a strong potential for future research, both individually and as a collection: a
situation familiar to many museums around the world. Key questions include: Where are the ‘missing’
Robinow objects? How do Robinow’s pieces link to other objects in other collections? Should – and if so,
how can – the unknown origin of the Robinow objects be explained to visitors when they are displayed
next to more fragmentary, less attractive pieces from known archaeological contexts? And is the ‘messy’
story of the process of acquisition from Robinow’s family one that we want or need to tell?
References
Alberti, S. 2009. Nature and Culture. Objects, disciplines and the Manchester Museum. Manchester
University Press: Manchester.
Allgrove-McDowell, J. 1991. ‘Romano-Egyptian Embroidery: Autumn and Winter’, Hali 57, 120-121.
Bierbrier, M. 2012. Who Was Who in Egyptology. 4th Revised Edition. EES: London.
Pritchard, F. 2004. Clothing Culture: Dress in Egypt in the First Millennium AD. Whitworth Art Gallery:
Manchester.
Spurr, S, N. Reeves, and S. Quirke. Egyptian Art at Eton College. Selections from the Myers Museum. Yale
University Press.