Walter Leo Hildburgh (1876-1955) was an American art collector, sportsman, traveller, scientist and philanthropist.

Early life and education

Hildburgh was born in New York in 1876 into a family that had arrived in America earlier in the nineteenth century. He attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, gaining a Ph.D. with a thesis on

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

. Of independent means, Hildburgh was able to continue his scientific studies without the need to earn a profit from his research. It also allowed him to pursue other interests: he was a first-rate swimmer and a figure-skater of international repute. Hildburgh was also an active sportsman: he become an international-level figure-skater and swimmer and, later in life, served as a judge at the

1931 World Figure Skating Championships The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion. The competitions took place from February 28 to March ...

Traveller and Collector

Hildburgh undertook his first trip abroad in 1900, taking a long trip through Japan, China and India. He also travelled extensively to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Through his travels he began collecting: not only metalwork, decorative arts and sculpture but also folkloric objects such as amulets, which he bought up in "vast numbers". In 1902 he began keeping notebooks with his own ideas as well as literary quotations and information from art dealers. He mainly based himself in London from 1912 onwards and only briefly returned to America after that date.''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', 28 November 1955 By the time he was based in London, Hildburgh had begun to publish articles on his interests, particularly around the history of the applied arts. He would contribute to a wide variety of different journals, authoring over 300 articles and reviews. Hildburgh was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

in 1906 and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1915. He was awarded a D.Litt in the History of Art from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

in 1937.

Folklorist

Hildburgh joined the

Folklore Society The Folklore Society (FLS) is a national association in the United Kingdom for the study of folklore. It was founded in London in 1878 to study traditional vernacular culture, including traditional music, song, dance and drama, narrative, arts an ...

in 1906, becoming one of its council members in 1909 and later its president from 1948 to 1951. In 1950, he presented incomplete set of copies of his articles to the Society's library, with a list of them in its journal ''Folklore'' later the same year. In 1952 Hildburgh was awarded the Folklore Society's Coote Lake Medal "for his long and valuable service to folklore, notably in the field of amulets throughout the world". He has been seen as a key figure at the Folklore Society in the immediate post-war period: "an excellent man of business; as long as he was about, the affairs of the Society, although always precarious, were kept in good order".

Donor

Hildburgh was a major donor to museums. Hildburgh gave (or bequeathed) over 5,000 objects to the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

(V&A), including the Hildburgh Madonna, '' Hercules and Antaeus'', and one of the

Aldobrandini Tazze The Aldobrandini Tazze are a set of 12 silver-gilt standing cups in the shallow ''tazza (cup), tazza'' shape (plural ''tazze''), sometimes described as bowls or dishes. They are outstanding examples of Renaissance metalwork, described by John Fo ...

, and examples of German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish silver- and gold-working In 1946, to mark his 70th birthday, Hildburgh presented to the V&A 300 examples of English alabaster reliefs. A plaque in Hildburgh's memory was installed inside the main entrance (Room 60) of the V&A in 1957. To the British Museum Hildburgh gave the

Cordoba Treasure The Cordoba Treasure, or ''Tesoro de Córdoba'' in Spanish, is the name of a major Iron Age silver hoard found on the outskirts of the city of Córdoba, Spain in 1915. The entire treasure was purchased by the British Museum in 1932, where it has ...

as well as many other objects. Hildburgh left his large collection of amulets to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. In 1985 this collection was transferred to the

Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed t ...

. Hildburgh also gave objects to other museums and collections such as the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the Cooper Hewitt and the

UCL Institute of Archaeology UCL's Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of the Social & Historical Sciences Faculty of University College London (UCL) which it joined in 1986 having previously been a school of the University of London. It is currently one o ...

Selected works

Books

*Hildburgh, W. L (1936). ''Medieval Spanish enamels and their relation to the origin and the development of copper champlevé enamels of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,''. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford.

OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...

829853.

Articles

*Hildburgh, W. L. (1900-05-01). "A New Electrolytic Cell For Rectifying Alternating Currents". ''Journal of the American Chemical Society''. 22 (5): 300–304. doi:10.1021/ja02043a010.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...

0002-7863. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1915). "65. Notes on Some Japanese Magical Methods for Injuring Persons". ''Man''. 15: 116–121. doi:10.2307/2787870.

0025-1496. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1917). "103. Note on a Magical Curative Practice in Use at Benares". ''Man''. 17: 157–158. doi:10.2307/2788048.

0025-1496. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1933). "Iconographical Peculiarities in English Medieval Alabaster Carvings. Part One". ''Folklore''. 44 (1): 32–56.

0015-587X. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1942). "Varieties of Circumstantial Evidence in the Study of Mediaeval Enameling". '' Speculum''. 17 (3): 390–401. doi:10.2307/2853309.

0038-7134. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1942-12-01). "Cowrie Shells as Amulets in Europe". ''Folklore''. 53 (4): 178–195. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1942.9717654.

0015-587X. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1946-12-01). "Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings". ''Folklore''. 57 (4): 154–178. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1946.9717831.

0015-587X. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1946/10). "On Some Italian Renaissance Caskets with Pastiglia Decoration". ''The Antiquaries Journal''. 26 (3–4): 123–137. doi:10.1017/S0003581500049891.

1758-5309. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1948). "A Marble Relief Attributable to Donatello and Some Associable Stuccos". ''

The Art Bulletin The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

''. 30 (1): 11–19. doi:10.2307/3047156.

0004-3079. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1949). "II.—English Alabaster Carvings as Records of the Medieval Religious Drama". '' Archaeologia''. 93: 51–101. doi:10.1017/S026134090000953X.

2051-3186. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1951-03). "Psychology Underlying the Employment of Amulets in Europe". ''Folklore''. 62 (1): 231–251. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1951.9718026.

0015-587X. *Hildburgh, W. L. (1955). "Images of the Human Hand as Amulets in Spain". ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes''. 18 (1/2): 67. doi:10.2307/750288.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hildburgh, Walter American art collectors American folklorists American male figure skaters American male swimmers 1876 births 1955 deaths People from New York (state) Columbia University alumni People associated with the British Museum People associated with the Victoria and Albert Museum Presidents of the Folklore Society