Where did Pitt-Rivers get his objects from?

In other articles (see further reading list) I have pointed out that Pitt-Rivers' major source of objects was dealers and auction houses. This is certainly confirmed by the detailed documentation of his second collection in the catalogue held by Cambridge University Library.

The statistics also support this. So far as is known, of all the individuals and institutions associated with both collections,

753  were based in UK * (82.4 per cent)

160  were based abroad  (17.5 per cent)

All but one of the people who contributed to both collections were based in the UK. For the founding collection a slightly lower percentage was obtained from UK-based sources (74.9 per cent) and for the second collection after 1880 a slightly higher percentage was obtained from such sources (84.9 per cent). To place this against his known periods abroad, consult the information about Pitt-Rivers' foreign trips and holidays here (or in menu to right, 'Pitt-Rivers' Life'). Certainly in his second collection it is clear that he used the opportunity of foreign holiday travel to buy objects from dealers, and from individuals he met.

* Note that during Pitt-Rivers' lifetime, and in these statistics, the UK includes the Republic of Ireland.

Further Reading

Petch, Alison 1998. ‘“Man as he was and Man as he is”: General Pitt Rivers’s Collections’, Journal of the History of Collections, Vol. 10 no. 1, pp. 75–85.

Petch, Alison. 2006. [a]. 'Chance and Certitude: Pitt Rivers and his first collection', Journal of the History of Collecting 18 (2006),  pp. 249-256.

AP, June 2010