Abstract:

Starting in the year 1828, Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, unearthed more than 2000 Greek vases on his estate near the ancient Etruscan town of Vulci. The vases were restored and found their way to archaeological collections all around the world. This volume publishes 10 papers by scholars of international repute dealing with these ceramics.

The papers were presented in 2015 at a colloquium in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, which acquired 96 vases from the Bonaparte collection in 1839. Specialists in the fields of museum history, Greek vase-painting, restoration and 19th century collecting practices from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Italy and Russia have contributed to this volume, which offers the newest insights into the person of Lucien Bonaparte, his excavation practices, the history of restorations and the selling and buying of Greek ceramics in the 19th century.

The results have helped to extend our knowledge of the collectors, traders and scholars, who were concerned with Greek vases during the 19th century. Their activities took place in a pivotal period, in which the black- and red figure ceramics, which had come to light in Italy during the previous centuries, were finally assigned to Greek craftsmanship instead of to Etruscan manufacture.

The book also contains a concise photographic catalogue illustrating the highlights of the Leiden Canino collection.

Contents

Wim Weijland
Foreword

Pieter ter Keurs
Lucien Bonaparte and the Politics of Collecting

Alessandra Costantini
Lucien Bonaparte, the Archaeologist-Prince

Anne Viole Siebert
Staying at Musignano: August Kestner and the excavations of the Principe di Canino

Anna Petrakova
Canino vases in the State Hermitage Museum: the history of purchasing

Ruurd Halbertsma and Jos van Heel
Greek vases in The Hague and Leiden: the sale of Canino vases in 1839

Vinnie Nørskov
The Canino Auctions – the unidentified vases

Friederike Bubenheimer-Erhart
The appreciation of black- and red-figure vases and other pottery wares according to the Canino documents

Marie-Amélie Bernard
Without adding any line of drawing – The restoration of the Canino vases: principles, reality and actors

Renske Dooijes and Marianna Düring
The Canino Collection: Historical Restorations on Greek vases in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden

Anastasia Bukina
Restorations on the Canino vases of the Hermitage museum

_Photographic catalogue of highlights of the Leiden Canino collection_