Julius Konietzko and Arthur Byhan – Two Hamburg Ethnologists in Sardinia

Drawing on previously unpublished letters, photographs, and artifacts, Giovanni Masala reconstructs the journeys of the Hamburg ethnologists Arthur Byhan and Julius Konietzko to Sardinia in 1926 and 1931. Commissioned by what was then the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology, they collected objects of everyday culture and decorative arts there, a large portion of which eventually found their way into what is now the MARKK. While Byhan acquired only objects, Konietzko also left behind numerous photographs. The collection is supplemented by studio photographs by the Sardinian photographer Sebastiano Guiso.