Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Photographer · Expedition member · Scholar · Collector

Magda H. Ohnefalsch-Richter

1873–1922 · Germany

Wife and assistant of Max Ohnefalsch-Richter who helped photograph the Cyprus Museum collection and wrote Griechische Sitten und Gebräuche auf Cypern (1913), illustrated with her own photographs.

Biography

One of the few surviving photographs of the 1894 excavation at Idalion was reproduced in a book by Magda Ohnefalsch-Richter, wife and assistant of Max Ohnefalsch-Richter. Stylianou-Lambert and Bounia give her dates as 1873 to 19229. In his report on the Idalion dig Max thanked "my wife, who was appointed as my official assistant by the Prussian Minister of Instruction", and credited her skill and energy for the speed of the work3.

The 1899 Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum states that a series of photographs of the whole collection was planned and partly made by Max and Mrs Ohnefalsch-Richter, with the negatives belonging to the Hellenic Society in London5. A photograph album of Cyprus by the couple dates from 189510. They later presented an album of Cypriot views to the German Emperor and Empress, and her book grew from it. Buchholz places the couple in London finishing the book in autumn 1912 or spring 1913, and gives its completion at Monte Carlo in September 19132.

Griechische Sitten und Gebräuche auf Cypern appeared in Berlin in 1913. Its plate 64 reproduces the large group photograph of the Idalion dig3. Stylianou-Lambert and Bounia think she was probably the driving force behind the couple's ethnographic collection, now in folk museums in Berlin and Vienna; her plate 70 shows ancient vases beside folk objects to support her argument that the two resembled each other9.

Life and work

  1. 1894
    Appointed official assistant to her husband's Idalion excavation by the Prussian Minister of Instruction (Max's words in his 1894 report, thanking her for 'skill and energy').

    IdalionMasson & Hermary 1988

  2. 1894
    Marriage with Max (per a Berlin marriage register of 1894, Urkunde 125, listed in Recke 2018's figure list).

    BerlinRecke 2018

  3. 1895
    Max and Magda produced a Cypriot photograph album (Masson 1995 reviews 'Un album de photographies chypriotes de Max et Magda Ohnefalsch-Richter (1895)').

    Recke 2018

  4. 1895–1899
    Photographic series representative of the whole Cyprus Museum collection planned and partly carried out by Max and Mrs Ohnefalsch-Richter; negatives owned by the Hellenic Society, London.

    NicosiaMyres & Ohnefalsch-Richter 1899

  5. 1912–1913
    With Max, in London to finish the book on Greek customs, after the couple had presented a Cyprus photo album to the German Emperor and Empress; published Griechische Sitten und Gebräuche auf Cypern in 1913 with her own photographs. She thanks Reinhold von Lichtenberg for help with illustrations.

    London; BerlinBuchholz 1989Merrillees 2005, p. 19

  6. 1913
    Her book prints the only surviving group photograph of the 1894 Idalion dig (pl. 64), views of a balustrade window-stone at Kouklia (pl. 9.2) and the Kouklia temple site (pl. 4.2), a Late Cypriot figurine from the Watkins collection (pl. 18.5), and a photograph of Max's and her ethnographic/ancient pottery side by side (pl. 70); it calls Kl. Pierides at Kouklia 'Ein Grosskaufmann in Karuben und Alterthümern'.

    Masson & Hermary 1988Masson 1985Merrillees 1992Stylianou-Lambert & Bounia 2016, p. 97

Connections

6 people
Reinhold von LichtenbergMax Ohnefalsch-RichterHermann Ohnefalsch-RichterWolfgang FilserJohn Linton MyresAnna G. MarangouMagda H. Ohnefalsch-Richter
Sales & giftsFamilyScholarshipColleagues

Sales, gifts & bequests

Family

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Objects

Sources

  1. 1.Magda H. Ohnefalsch-Richter (1913). Griechische Sitten und Gebräuche auf Cypern. Mit Berücksichtigung von Naturkunde und Volkswirtschaft sowie der Fortschritte unter englischer Herrschaft. Berlin.
  2. 2.H.-G. Buchholz (1989). “Max Ohnefalsch-Richter als Archäologe auf Zypern”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 11-12, 3-27.
  3. 3.O. Masson, A. Hermary (1988). “Le voyage de Ludwig Ross à Chypre en 1845 et les antiquités chypriotes du Musée de Berlin”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 9, 3-10. Online
  4. 4.O. Masson (1985). “Les visites de Max Ohnefalsch-Richter à Kouklia (Ancienne-Paphos), 1890 et 1910”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 3, 19-28. Online
  5. 5.J. L. Myres, M. Ohnefalsch-Richter (1899). A Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
  6. 6.Robert Stuart Merrillees (2005). “Towards a fuller history of the Cyprus Museum”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 35, 191-214. Online
  7. 7.Robert S. Merrillees (1992). “A Late Cypriote figurine with child from the Boysset Collection (now Sèvres Museum)”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 18, 3-7. Online
  8. 8.A. Bernhard-Walcher, G. Dembski, K. Gschwantler, V. Karageorghis (1999). Die Sammlung zyprischer Antiken im Kunsthistorischen Museum / The Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
  9. 9.T. Stylianou-Lambert, A. Bounia (2016). The Political Museum: Power, Conflict, and Identity in Cyprus.
  10. 10.M. Recke (2018). Like Herrings in a Barrel: Max Ohnefalsch-Richter.