African Art at the University of Aberdeen

Abstract

T he University of Aberdeen has received gifts and endowments from friends and graduates since the foundation of its constituent colleges of Kings in 1495 and Marischal College in 1593. During the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century these donations reflected the important role played by Scots in the exploration and administration of the British Empire. Several thousands of objects from all parts of the world were held by various departments of the university until 1907, when Robert Reid, Professor of Anatomy, brought them together in what is known as the Anthropological Museum. The African collection is small by international standards but contains many interesting items (see Reid 1912). John Hargreaves (1981) has described the close relations between Northeast Scotland and black Africa, and the importance of that contact to the University of Aberdeen. In the later