Henry Christy

Henry Christy gave the British Museum 87 pieces of Cypriot limestone sculpture, together with terracotta figurines from Larnaka, in 1852; they were the first Cypriot sculpture in its collection¹. Born in 1810, he was a banker and textile manufacturer whose main interests were ethnology and prehistory, and he acquired the Cypriot pieces on a tour of the Levant in 1850 and 1851 that included Turkey, Egypt and Cyprus^1,2. Ulbrich and Kiely write that virtually nothing is known about his visit or his motives, and speculate that Demetrios Pierides may have guided him².

The museum first presented the gift as coming from ancient Paphos. In a letter of 1853 Christy said that all of it had been purchased at Larnaka, probably from nearby, except for one Greek alphabetic inscription from Paphos². The museum's catalogue entries do not separate the 1852 gift from later Christy pieces¹.

Christy died in France in 1865. His will of 1863 left his house and collection to four trustees, among them Augustus Wollaston Franks, who passed most of the collection to the British Museum in 1868, including more Cypriot limestone sculpture¹. In 1874 the trustees presented about 425 objects to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (accessions 1874.78 to 1874.492). They included 13 limestone heads and a statuette body from Dali, ancient Idalion, whose labels read "brought from Dali by Mr Christy" and which are marked "H.C." on the stone^1,2.