Collector Biographies 1: Robert de Rustafjaell (1859–1943)

The blog post for this week is the first of semi-regular entries dealing with various collectors whom Sir Henry Wellcome purchased objects from between 1900–1936. The first biography is on the elusive Robert de Rustafjell, whose collections are well represented in the Egypt Centre with perhaps as many as 1000 objects. To quote an abstract advertising a talk by Tom Hardwick, “Robert de Rustafjaell is one of the strangest and most mysterious figures … A bigamist, a serial absconder and man of many aliases, an amasser of valuable and worthless objects including the oldest paintings in the world on canvas and a relic of the true cross, a Zelig-like figure who turns up in the oddest places.” The following account is largely taken from the entry by Bierbrier in the Who Was Who in Egyptology (2019, 405–6), which is an essential reference work for any Egyptologist.

 

Fig. 1: Theban tomb painting, purchased by Wellcome from the 1906 de Rustafjaell sale.

Robert de Rustafjaell was a British-American collector, dealer, and author. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the 10 December 1859, the son of Nicholas Classen Smed (to whom the surnames Smith and de Rustafjaell were later attributed), an engineer of Norwegian extraction, and Maria Tamara Orbeliani. Despite this, he later claimed in a passenger manifesto to have been born in Birmingham 1876, while his death notice records his birth as 10 December 1875. Few of his often extravagant claims about his ancestry and life can be externally verified. He claims to have been brought to England in 1861 by his parents and to have been educated at Harrow and Oxford, and in Sweden and Germany. He travelled overseas after 1877, spending time in America before returning to England in 1887. He was first known by the surname Smith or Fawcus-Smith, although he was using that of de Rustafjaell by 1892 and formally changed to the latter on 9 Oct 1894. He appears to have married a Swedish lady Carolina Amalia Arfwidson in 1892, with whom he had a son (Robert Clarence Hjalmar de Rustafjaell, 1892–16 Jun 1914) soon afterwards. He was married again in 1895 to Harriet Sarah Wilkinson, but was in the company of his first wife and son in the 1901 census. By 1905 he was married to an American, Mary Davis (b. 1869), perhaps the mother of his daughter Tamara (09 Oct 1907–Nov 1982), born in southern Russia (or Kars, Turkey) in 1907. Tamara, who later resided in Pennsylvania, later changed her surname from Orbeliani Rustafjaell to Rustafell.

Fig. 2: Inscribed textile, purchased by Wellcome from the de Rustafjaell collection in 1906

Robert de Rustafjaell excavated at Cyzicus in Turkey in 1901. He lived for some time in Egypt as a geologist, mining engineer, and owner of the Luxor Trading Co., which also sold antiquities. In 1909 he opened an antiquities shop on the main street at Luxor, which he called the Museum of Practical Archaeology. According to Ludwig Borchardt, it included a considerable number of fakes (Hagen & Ryholt 2016, 259; Voss 2014, 57). It was during this time that he formed a collection of Egyptian antiquities, mainly Predynastic, but also acquiring a number of New Kingdom votive cloths from the Hathor shrine at Deir el-Bahari (d’Auria 1996), fragments from the walls of Theban tombs (including that of Nebamun), and two groups of papyri and codices (Vorderstrasse 2019).

Fig. 3: Paneb's offering stand (W957), purchased by Wellcome from the 1907 de Rustafjaell sale

De Rustafjaell was declared bankrupt in London in 1914 and emigrated to America. Immigration records show him travelling at least three times to New York between 1919–1927 under the name Robert Orbeliani-Rustafjaell. At one period he changed his name to Col. Prince Roman Orbeliani (as well as other variants), thus linking himself with the powerful Georgian Orbeliani family (Vorderstrasse 2019, 17). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in 1899, of the Zoological Society in 1901, and the Royal Numismatic Society in 1904. In addition to short notices on his collection in newspapers and journals, he published Palaeolithic vessels of Egypt or the earliest handiwork of man (1907), The light of Egypt from recently discovered Predynastic and early Christian records, etc (1909), and The stone age in Egypt: a record of recently discovered implements and products of the archaic Niliotic races inhabiting the Thebaid (1914). The light of Egypt publication is noteworthy for having a photo (fig. 4) of the discoverer of the Deir el-Bahari cache (BD 320), Abd er-Rasul Ahmed Abd er-Rasul, with his aging mother Fendia (said to be 120 years of age), his daughter, and grandchild (de Rustafjaell 1909, 55, pl. 29; Simpson 2010, 200–2, fig. 3).

Fig. 4: Abd er-Rasul family, pre-1909. de Rustafjaell (1909, pl. 29)

His collections were dispersed in five sales: Sotheby’s, 19–21 Dec 1906 (550 lots), 9–10 Dec 1907 (245 lots), 20–24 Jan 1913 (1051 lots), Paris 29 May 1914, and New York 29 Nov–1 Dec 1915 (745 lots). The first sale produced £1,843, the second £308-12, the third £2,748, and the fifth $12,760. A posthumous sale took place in New York 13–14 Dec 1949. According to Hagen and Ryholt (2014, 160, 162, 259), Rustafjaell would issue press releases about important discoveries, all of which were related to objects in his own collection, which had, rather conveniently, just appeared at auction. The ultimate aim was to drive up the price by creating a bidding war! Objects from these sales have since ended up in the British Museum, British Library, Berlin Museum, the Louvre, and many other museums.

Fig. 5: Copper alloy sword marked "Medinet Habu". Purchased by Wellcome from the 1906 de Rustafjaell sale

Sir Henry Wellcome was a major purchaser at his sales in 1906, 1907, and 1913, with many of the objects subsequently arriving in Swansea in 1971. While many of the objects are particularly important pieces, a high number of them are fakes and forgeries. Some of the highlights have already featured in this blog, including the offering stand of Paneb (W957), a sandstone fragment from the Gurna temple of Thutmose III (W1371), a painted relief from a Theban tomb (W1377), a soldier stela (W1366), a bronze statue of Osiris (W85), a rare Predynastic stone figure (W150), and fragments of the sarcophagus of Amenhotep son of Hapu (W1367a & b). Other objects include lithics, Predynastic pottery and stone vessels, coffin fragments, wooden furniture, metal weapons and tools, stone statues (mostly fragmentary), stelae, jewellery, and a large quantity of textiles, mainly Coptic. Despite their random nature, Rustafjaell seems to have labelled the provenance of many of these objects with blue or red pencil, although whether these associations are accurate is debatable (fig. 5).  

Fig. 6: Relief depicting Khabekhnet, purchased by Wellcome in 1906 from the de Rustafjaell collection

One object without provenance, W927, is worthy of highlighting here (fig. 6). The object is a painted limestone relief depicting Khabekhnet and his wife Sahte (to the right) presenting offerings to the deities Ptah, Ptah-Sokar, and Isis. Several enthroned deities are also depicted in the scene above, although only the feet are preserved. Khabekhnet is identified in the hieroglyphs as the “Servant in the Place of Truth”, which was the Egyptian name for the workman’s village at Deir el-Medina. The exact provenance of this relief is unknown, although it is likely from at tomb-chapel or shrine at Deir el-Medina where Khabekhnet was buried (TT 2). Khabekhnet was the eldest son of Sennedjem, whose well-known tomb (TT 1) at Deir el-Medina was discovered undisturbed in 1886. While Ptah was the main deity at Memphis, he became the patron god of the villagers of Deir el-Medina. The relief was purchased in 1906 from the collection of Robert de Rustafjaell (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Plate 10 from the 1906 sale with objects from the Egypt Centre, British Museum, and Liverpool World Museum superimposed 

Despite his colourful career, not a single photo of Robert de Rustafjaell is known to exist, which is perhaps exactly how he would have wanted it given his elusive nature. Roman Orbeliani, as he was then known, died in New York 10 Feb 1943 and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery three days later.

Bibliography:

Bierbrier, Morris L. 2019. Who was who in Egyptology, 5th revised ed. London: Egypt Exploration Society.

D’Auria, Sue 1996. Three painted textiles in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum. In Manuelian, Peter Der (ed.), Studies in honor of William Kelly Simpson 1, 169–176. Boston: Dept. of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art, Museum of Fine Arts.

De Rustafjaell, Robert 1907. Palaeolithic vessels of Egypt: or the earliest handiwork of man. London: Macmillan.

———. 1909. The light of Egypt: from recently discovered predynastic and early Christian records. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.

———. 1914. The stone age in Egypt; a record of recently discovered implements and products of handicraft of the archaic Nilotic races inhabiting the Thebaid. New York: W. E. Rudge.

Hagen, Fredrik and Kim Ryholt 2016. The antiquities trade in Egypt 1880–1930: the H.O. Lange papers. Scientia Danica. Series H, Humanistica, 4 8. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.

Simpson, Caroline 2010. Qurna: more pieces of an unfinished history. In Hawass, Zahi and Salima Ikram (eds), Thebes and beyond: studies in honour of Kent R. Weeks, 197–218. Le Caire: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités.

Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge 1906. Catalogue of the collection of Egyptian antiquities, formed in Egypt by R. De Rustafjaell, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge...19th December, 1906 and two following days... London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge.

———. 1907. Catalogue of a collection of antiquities from Egypt, ... being the second portion of the collection of Robert de Rustafjaell, esq. F.R.G.S, which will be sold by auction, ... on Monday, the 9th of December, 1907, and the following day. London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge.

———. 1913. Catalogue of the remaining part of the valuable collection of Egyptian antiquities formed by Robert de Rustafjaell, Esq. London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge.

Vorderstrasse, Tasha 2019. What is Medieval Nubian art? The Oriental Institute News & Notes 240, 16–19.

Voss, Susanne 2014. Ludwig Borchardts Berichte über Fälschungen im ägyptischen Antikenhandel von 1899 bis 1914: Aufkommen, Methoden, Techniken, Spezialisierungen und Vertrieb. In Fitzenreiter, Martin (ed.), Authentizität: Artefakt und Versprechen in der Archäologie. Workshop vom 10. bis 12. Mai 2013, Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Bonn, 51-59. London: Golden House.