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New Materials on Grote (Part 3)

1. This is the third post in a series in which I document new biographical material related to the collector Friedrich Grote (you can find the first two posts here and here). This post is about two letters by Grote that Vincent Engelhardt (Leiden University) found in the Central Archive of the Berlin State Museums while looking through the papers of the art historian Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1925).1 I would like to thank Vincent for drawing my attention to these letters. They add interesting new details and shed new light on a previously obscure point in Grote’s biography. First and foremost, the letters show how Grote built up networks that not only served the flow of information, but also the transfer of cultural heritage objects.

2. Both letters, written by Grote, are addressed to Wilhelm von Bode. That is interesting in itself. I was not previously aware of a connection between the two and von Bode’s name does not appear anywhere else in the materials on Grote’s biography. The art historian was in contact with several important private collectors of the Wilhelmine era, including Henri James Simon (1851-1932), the previous owner of the famous Nefertiti Bust, whose restitution to Egypt has been demanded in recent years. However, the letters do not give the impression that Grote, who seems to have initiated the contact, had any close ties to von Bode or would have been counted by the latter among the circle of ‘important collectors’. We cannot even say whether Grote already considered himself a ‘collector’ at that time, i.e. in the early 1900s. Von Bode, on the other hand, was a well-known public figure and an influential player in the Prussian cultural sphere.

Figure 1: The Mshatta Facade, displayed at Berlin’s Museum of Islamic Art. Source: Richard Mortel, Wikimedia.

3. The first letter sheds light on how Grote was not only involved in dealing with manuscripts. Rather, it makes clear that he also represented a general European interest in the exploitation of Middle Eastern cultural heritage objects. The first letter is related to the so-called Mshatta Facade. This is an ornamented part of the wall of a palace from the Umayyad period (qaṣr al-mušattā, ‘winter palace’, 8th century CE).2 The historical site of the palace is located a few kilometres south of the Jordanian capital Amman. It is one of the most important early Islamic monuments. Part of this facade was presented, with von Bode’s mediation, as a diplomatic gift to the Emperor Wilhelm II (1859-1941) by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II (1842-1918) and transported to Berlin in 1903. Today, the facade is on display at the Museum of Islamic Art (Museum für Islamische Kunst) in Berlin (see fig. 1). Grote wrote the first letter only a few months before the transport and offers himself as an informant. I shall give here a brief description and summarise its contents.3

4. The letter is three pages long. It was sent from Göttingen and is dated 27 May 1903. We learn from this (as well as from the second letter) that Grote must have spent time in Germany and Europe sporadically after the turn of the 19th century, even though he did not return to Germany permanently until 1918 (he probably remained in Egypt throughout the entire First World War). In the letter, Grote is primarily concerned with the question of the best transport route for the Mshatta ‘plastic’, as he calls it. He proposes transport by the Hejaz railway from ‘Ziza’ (i.e. al-Ǧīza) station, which is ‘an hour’s journey south of Meschaṭṭā [sic]’, to Damascus and from there to Beirut. According to him, for the shipment Beirut was preferable to the ‘rather unpredictable roadstead of Jaffa’. The station of al-Ǧīza had not yet been completed at the time, but Grote assures von Bode that it will be ready for use by the end of July at the latest. He says he obtained this information in writing from ‘Don Manfredi’. Grote states that the transport should total a sum of 25,000 marks (which would correspond to about 197,500 euros today). At the end of his letter, he asks whether von Bode has received a positive response from a certain ‘Dr Schumacher’. If not, he would continue to be at his service.

Figure 2: A map drawn by Gottlieb Schumacher showing the location of Mshatta. He estimates the distance from Jerusalem to Mshatta to be a 3 to 4 day horse ride. Shelfmark: Berlin, Central Archive of the Berlin State Museums, ZA SMB, I/IM 6. Source: Eva-Maria Troelenberg, Mshatta in Berlin: Grundsteine islamischer Kunst (Dortmund: Kettler, 2014), plate 35.

5. Grote mentions two names here that provide further insight into his closer and wider networks. ‘Dr Schumacher’ was most likely the well-known engineer and architect Gottlieb Schumacher (1857-1925), who was not only involved in the planning and construction of the Hejaz railway, but also in the transport of the facade. Around the same time Grote wrote his letter to von Bode, Schumacher drew a map showing the location of Mshatta and helping to estimate geographical distances (fig. 2). Von Bode, thus, did indeed hear from Dr Schumacher, who at the time suggested costs of 60,000 marks (almost half a million euros today) and transport through the Jordan Valley.4 We can only speculate as to which of his tasks Grote offered to take on and whether he was even qualified to do so. Curiously, the facade was actually transported via the route suggested by Grote. However, I have not yet been able to find out whether the information he provided had any influence on this. It may be that this transport route was eventually recognised as the most expedient anyway and Grote was just trying to make himself important in order to profit in some way.

Figure 3: Don Giuseppe Manfredi (1863-1904). Source: Historical Archives of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

6. The letter certainly gives the impression that Grote had no direct contact with Schumacher. In contrast, he directly corresponded with Don (Giuseppe) Manfredi (1863-1904).5 The Catholic priest and missionary of Piedmontese descent (fig. 3), who apparently went by the Arabic name ‘Abūnā Yūsuf’, was in charge of the Latin community in the Jordanian town of Madaba (Maʾdabā) from 1887 to 1904. He was a self-taught archaeologist – and quite a successful one at that. This is perhaps not so surprising, since Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855-1935), the founder of the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, was one of his mentors. Manfredi is regarded as the discoverer of the 6th-century Church of the Apostles in Madaba and its floor mosaic. He has also published several articles on the archaeological finds in Madaba. It is noteworthy that Manfredi exhibits some interesting parallels to Grote: Interest in biblical archaeology, amateur researcher, missionary work – but due to his clerical affiliation he perhaps had a much better starting point than Grote, who needed to reinvent himself again and again. The letters belong precisely in this context and building a network that included influential figures was an essential part of it.

Figure 4: A letter by Friedrich Grote, sent to Wilhelm von Bode from Vienna in January 1906. Source: Berlin, Central Archive of the Berlin State Museums, ZA SMB/NL Bode 2216.

7. The second letter consists of just a single page (fig. 4). It is dated 15 January 1906 and was sent from Vienna. Grote mentions that he is on his way to Trieste, which almost certainly means that he stopped off in Vienna on a journey to Egypt. This letter also mentions two names: The first is that of a ‘Prof. Dr. Sarre’. This must be the art historian Friedrich Sarre (1865-1945) who had close ties with von Bode and headed the Islamic department of Berlin’s museums in the former Kaiser Friedrich Museum (now the Bode Museum). Sarre was on his way to Vienna and Grote informs von Bode that he has left a letter for him. The mention of Sarre, like von Bode one of the big names of the Prussian high culture scene at the time, underscores the impression of the first letter. Here, too, we encounter Grote as a networker. One gets the impression that he seeks to market himself through smaller services, offering information and assistance.

8. The second name is that of a ‘Mr Mielich’. At first, it was really difficult for me to even decipher this name. But eventually I remembered that I had come across it before in connection with Sinaitic manuscripts. The University Library of Graz holds seven Georgian manuscripts, some of them palimpsests with Armenian undertext, which were brought there by the Austrian genre painter Alfons Leopold Mielich (1863-1929). Wachtang Imnaishwili published an article on this in 2008, which, however, says nothing about the circumstances of the acquisition.6 I think that the letter provides an important clue here. Grote was apparently acquainted with Mielich. This could very well explain how the painter got hold of manuscripts from St Catherine’s Monastery, as he could simply have bought them from Grote.

9. In conclusion, it can be said that the two letters primarily provide an insight into the persons Grote interacted with and the purpose for which he did so. Some not insignificant names appear that we were previously unable to associate with him. The first letter additionally made me wonder about Grote’s knowledge of Arabic. He gives the name of the place Mshatta in transcription, which is unfortunately incorrect (the letter tāʾ [ت] is transcribed as ṭāʾ [ط]). Is this one of his attempts to mimic academic demeanour? Does the faulty transcription perhaps say nothing about his knowledge of the language, but rather about his ignorance or amateurish knowledge of scholarly conventions? One last point has to do with another document, a travelling and hunting diary of a friend of Grote’s, which I would like to discuss in one of the next posts. The letter from Vienna seems to have been written just before the journey reported in the diary. And Grote seems to be on his way to the hunting party.

Acknowledgements: For their help and support while working on this post, I would like to thank Prof Dr Isabelle Dolezalek, Vincent Engelhardt, Prof Dr Dr Hubert Kaufhold, and Lea Poralla.

Published: 11 December 2024. Last updated: 18 December 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0. Download PDF

  1. The call number of the estate is SMB-ZA/NL Bode 2216. []
  2. For the acquisition history and current museum context of the facade, see Volkmar Enderlein, “Die Erwerbung der Fassade von Mschatta“, Forschungen und Berichte, 26 (1987), pp. 81-90; Stefan Weber, Eva-Maria Troelenberg, “Mschatta im Museum: Zur Geschichte eines bedeutenden Monuments frühislamischer Kunst”, Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 46 (2010 [2011]), pp. 104-132; Eva-Maria Troelenberg, Mshatta in Berlin: Grundsteine islamischer Kunst (Dortmund: Kettler, 2014); eadem, Mshatta in Berlin – Keystones of Islamic Art (Dortmund: Kettler, 2016); Isabelle Dolezalek, Simon Lindner, “Mshatta – Ein Plan fürs Wegnehmen (1903)”, in: Merten Lagatz, Bénédicte Savoy, Phillipa Sissis, Simon Lindner (eds), Beute: Ein Bildatlas zu Kunstraub und Kulturerbe (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2021), pp. 58-61. []
  3. The letters are, of course, written in German. I quote from them in my own English translations. []
  4. E.-M. Troellenberg, Mshatta in Berlin, pp. 65-66. []
  5. Detailed biographical infromation, including the photo above, can be found on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. For further information, see Ignazio De Francesco, “Riconstruire il mosaico spezzato”, La Bottega di Nazareth (21 July 2020), URL = <https://bottegadinazareth.com/2020/07/21/ricostruire-il-mosaico-spezzato/>. The photo in this post was originally printed in Géraldine Chatelard, Briser la mosaïque: Les tribus chrétiennes de Madaba, Jordanie, XIXe-XXe siècle, Moyen-Orient (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2004 [2013]), DOI: 10.4000/books.editionscnrs.3634, photo 3; see also Élisabeth Lesnes, “Mādabā and Its Latin Church of Saint John the Baptist: A Synthesis“, Studies in the History and Archeology of Jordan, 13 (2019), pp. 231-242. There appears to be a biography or commemorative book published in the year of his death: G. Mancardi, D. Giuseppe Manfredi (Mondovi: s.e., 1904). []
  6. Wachtang Imnaischwili, “Wie die altgeorgischen Handschriften nach Graz gelangten”, in: Christos Staurakos, Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou, Mesrob K. Krikorian (eds), Hypermachos: Studien zur Byzantinistik, Armenologie und Georgistik: Festschrift für Werner Seibt zum 65. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), pp. 73-88. See also Erich Renhart, Ein spätantikes Los-Buch: Die Handschrift Nr. 2058/2 der Universitätsbibliothek Graz – ein armenisches Palimpsest (Graz: Unipress Graz, 2015); idem, Renhart, Erich. 2022. “The Sinaitic Palimpsest of Graz Library (Ms. 2058/2)“, Digital Kartvelology, 1 (2022), pp. 50-62; idem, ““An Ancient Armenian Text of the Gospel of John in a Graz Palimpsest: Preliminary Observations”, in: Jost Gippert, José Maksimczuk, Hasmik Sargsyan (eds.), Palimpsests and Related Phenomena across Languages and Cultures, Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 42 (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2025 [2024]), pp. 235-251. []

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Peter Tarras (December 11, 2024). New Materials on Grote (Part 3). Membra Dispersa Sinaitica. Retrieved February 11, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/12w67


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