The Duchess of Mecklenburg (1856 to 1929)
Duchess Marie Gabriele Ernestine Alexandra von Windischgrätz carried out excavations at the Hallstatt burial site in 1907 - against the wishes of Josef Szombathy, director of the Department of Prehistory of the Royal and Imperial Natural History Museum Vienna at the time, who only granted her permission at the insistence of the Emperor. Her collection was confiscated after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and not returned to her family until after her death, when it was put up for auction by her daughter. Today, items from this collection can be found in the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University.Family background
Excavation work
Confiscation of the collection
Sale of the collection
Where the finds are today
Family background
Marie Gabriele Ernestine Alexandra von Windischgrätz was born in 1856, daughter of Prince Hugo of Windischgrätz and Luise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Wagensberg, Carniola. At the age of 25, she married her cousin Duke Paul Friedrich, a brother of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg Schwerin. Her extravagant lifestyle gave rise to considerable disagreement with the Grand Ducal family, and she separated from her husband in 1900.Excavation work
She started her archaeological work 1905 in Vače, Slovenia, possibly influenced by her uncle Prince Ernst of Windischgrätz, the first excavator in Vače and discoverer of the famous decorated bronze bucket or situla today in the National Museum of Slovenia. After excavations in 1906 in the cemetery of Vinica, Slovenia, she came to Hallstatt in 1907, where she and her collaborators unearthed 45 graves within four weeks. The Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Museum of Natural History had refused an excavation permit, and it was only upon intervention by Emperor Franz Joseph I that work could be undertaken. Josef Szombathy, then head of the anthropological-prehistoric department, found fault with her archaeological skills and commented critically in his diary.Confiscation of the collection
After the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, the Duchess returned to Wagensberg, which was now part of the new Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. The new authorities confiscated the entire family property, and the archaeological collections came first to the new National Museum in Ljubljana. The impoverished Marie of Windischgrätz died in 1929, a few weeks before the confiscation of her collections was revoked by the new King Alexander.Sale of the collection
Although the Ljubljana Museum opposed the restitution, the Duchess’s daughter Marie Antoinette sold the collection abroad, with the permission of King Alexander. Headed by Adolf Mahr, archaeologist at the National Museum of Ireland and a former employee of the Department of Prehistory of the Natural History Museum, a team of prominent Iron Age experts compiled the catalogue and prepared the finds for auction. When Hugh Hencken, curator of the Boston Peabody Museum, found out about the collection, he recommended its acquisition. However, at a time of recession, nobody was prepared to pay the 150,000 dollars Marie-Antoinette had hoped for.Where the finds are today
Starting in 1934, the Peabody Museum acquired almost the entire collection by instalments, at a considerably reduced price. Smaller parts of the collection, mainly the finds from Vače, were purchased by Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Today, the Mecklenburg Collection in the Peabody Museum is the largest comprehensive archaeological collection of European cultural goods in the USA. Hugh Hencken was well aware of the high scientific value and the uniqueness of the collection, as evidenced by his recommendation letter to the director of the museum: ‘It is the type of material that if it were to be excavated today would never be allowed to come to America… Nothing like it has ever come before to our country and never will again...’.(Kern, A. – Loew, C.)
