Provenance Research as a Method of Religious Studies: A Plea for the Necessity of Expanding Methods Using the Example of Dolls

Abstract

Museum collections around the world contain millions of objects related to religion that can be considered classic sources for religious studies. To date, however, there is no method in religious studies for systematically critiquing such objects from museum collections as sources. Religious studies must therefore expand their methods in order to be able to systematically use such objects as sources for their own research. Various examples show that museum objects can only be made accessible for religious studies research with the help of provenance research. The main focus of the selected examples is on dolls with a religious background—or, rather, on museum objects that have been classified as dolls in collections. Using such objects as examples, this article provides insight into the problems of provenance and the resulting consequences. The aim is to use the examples to show how objects find their way into museum collections, what intentions may lie behind the acquisition of such objects, and how and in what context such objects may be presented to the public. The background to such a scientific approach lies in the analysis of the changing perspective on such objects, since the meaning and attribution of an object are never static. Rather, these objects are subject to a permanent change in perspective due to changing social processes. Or they are presented as something they never really were. And all this can be revealed by systematic provenance research. The article is therefore intended as a plea for the expansion of religious studies methods to include provenance research.

1. Introduction: Sources as Information Carriers

It is well known that religious study has not developed its own methods, but rather systematically analyzes the phenomenon of religion in the past and present with the help of scientific methods from various cultural and social sciences. The history of religion is of fundamental importance within religious studies. The history of religion uses the same methods as the general historical sciences and therefore also shares the conditions, problems and limitations of the historical sciences, as Klaus Hock rightly states in his Introduction to Religious Studies:

“This includes the fact that the history of religion does not establish ‘objective’, quasi-naturally given facts. Rather, the researcher himself or herself stands in a historical context from which he or she questions the available sources and enters into a dynamic relationship with them. The description of the religion studied or the analyzed object of the investigation is therefore not a codification of the given, but rather the result of an interaction between the researchers and their sources, in which the research certainly takes on the role of a ‘constructor’ to a certain extent”.

(Hock 2014, p. 28)

This is a matter of course, one would think. However, a closer look reveals a problem that religious studies has hardly ever addressed. It is about the “available sources” and their “questioning” by the researcher. In order to be able to analyze an object, a religious tradition, a cult and many other material and non-material things from the religious context, these must be recognizable to the researcher as religious things. When observing a hitherto unknown action, a possible religious background to this action can be recognized, for example, by interviewing the participants. Or there are written records of the practitioners of the action, from which the researcher can deduce that the observed action is a religious rite or ritual. Without contextualization with the help of evidence and proof, the action remains for the researcher merely an action of people that he cannot assign. However, the actual intention of the action remains hidden from the researcher, who can at most make assumptions about the intention. By comparing it with rituals from other religious contexts, the researcher could possibly draw conclusions about the religious content of the observed action. At this point, the researcher interprets something into his own observation. However, he can never be sure of the accuracy of his interpretation if there is no evidence to support it. However, as long as the researcher makes it clear and transparently explains what his interpretations are based on, this is not a problem. On the contrary, this is the basis of science and scientific discourse.

2. Religious Objects as Sources for Religious Studies: An Outline of the Problem

Bochinger and Frank describe all those signs—which have been presented here as an example of an action—as the symbols of a social system, which religious studies call ‘religion’. Bochinger and Frank explain:

“By symbols we mean signs of any kind and any complexity that refer to certain elements that give meaning to the user. In doing so, we are aligning ourselves with an understanding of symbols as represented by Parsons and in other social science concepts, but also similarly in semiotics and received in religious studies. Accordingly, the stock of symbols of a ‘religion’ includes myths, confessions, doctrines, rituals, but also concepts, images, smells, everyday actions and material objects, insofar as individuals or communities attribute a religious meaning to them”.

(Bochinger and Frank 2015, p. 256)

The crucial point at this point is that a religious meaning is attributed to the sign. The researcher can take over such an attribution from individuals of the religion, derive it from cross-references such as written records, or derive a religious meaning by comparing it with similar religious signs. As already indicated, however, a problem arises in the attribution of the sign. The attribution in turn forms the basis for the “questioning” by the researcher: Without the attribution of a religious meaning, the sign does not belong to the symbolic stock of the religion under investigation. The sign is therefore not an available source for the religious scholar, as the corresponding attribution is missing. Conversely, this means that the sign must be perceived as part of the symbolic stock of a religion in the first place. If signs are not recognized by the researcher as part of the symbol stock of the religion, this may result in an incomplete picture of the religion. This poses a major challenge for religious scholars, particularly in the case of archaeological finds of material objects, especially in the case of religious systems of non-written cultures. As there is often no reliable evidence that the material object belongs to the symbolic inventory of religion, the researcher can only base his analysis on interpretations. Gardeła, Bønding, and Pentz have demonstrated the associated challenges and problems very well using the example of medieval Scandinavia: What possibilities archaeological finds offer for the reconstruction of religions, but also what difficulties in interpretation are associated with this (Gardeła et al. 2023). If archaeological finds offer the possibility of interpreting material objects as part of a religion’s symbolic system, this automatically opens up the scientific discourse; other researchers share the line of argument that the object in question is part of a religion’s symbolic system—other researchers may reject such an interpretation.

However, the actual problem that will be discussed below is not the difficulty of interpretation. Bochinger and Frank have noted that a religious meaning is ascribed to a sign by individuals or communities—in the following we will only be talking about material objects.1 If we look at the religious object from the perspective of the scholar of religion, the following problem with the source may arise: a religious object, even before the scholar of religion looks at it, is not recognized as a religious object and, consequently, is not described as such. The actual function of the religious object remains hidden from the researcher and therefore cannot be used for religious studies analysis.

The problem is easy to illustrate: Most cultural studies—including, of course, religious studies—use written sources such as books, newspapers, lectures and first-person documents for their research and the associated contextualization. For the twentieth century, radio broadcasts (Tworuschka 2006), cinema films and television programs (Mohr 2008) are also considered important sources, and in the last three decades the Internet has also been added as a result of the digital turn (Meier 2008). On a material level, archaeological finds are also important sources when it comes to religion(s). But for this, the religious scholar is dependent on the archaeologist correctly describing, interpreting and cataloging the religious object in question. For it is only after the archaeologist has secured and categorized the religious object that it becomes usable as a material source for the scholar of religion. However, if an error or incorrect interpretation and classification by the archaeologist occurs during the description and cataloging process, the religious object is usually lost as a source for the religious scholar. The find and its originally attributed meaning remain permanently unknown to the religious scholar.

Museum collections usually contain many thousands—often far more—objects that can be found via databases and on the basis of corresponding descriptions and keywords. At this point, the religious scholar is therefore dependent on the ‘correct’ interpretation and classification2 by others—in our example, the archaeologist. If, for example, a material object is one that the religious scholar would assign to a rite, the religious scholar is dependent on the archaeologist having recognized and described the object as a religious object. However, if the archaeologist—or the person responsible for describing and tagging a collection—has interpreted the object as a profane everyday object, it is almost impossible for the religious scholar to find this originally religious object in the object database (which usually contains hundreds of thousands of entries) and use it as a source for their research.

3. Discussion

Within religious studies, museum holdings have hardly been considered and systematically used to date—with the exception of collections dedicated to religious studies.3 In general, this can also be said of the historical sciences that deal with the early modern period and contemporary history. While art historians naturally work with objects from museum collections, social history research, among others, has so far hardly taken up this large stock of sources. It is known, for example, that the Austrian emperors of the Habsburg dynasty conducted a veritable pictorial propaganda campaign within their own territories with the help of commissioned paintings. This was intended to establish the ongoing legitimacy of their own claim to power within their own population (Matsche 1981; Telesko 2017). At this point, one might ask how such a visually depicted claim to power reached the normal population. After all, the commissioned paintings were unique and could only be viewed by a privileged few. The holdings of the Provincial Collections of Lower Austria [Landessammlungen Niederösterreich], which hold over six million objects from the various fields of natural and cultural sciences,4 include, for example, wall panels showing Rudolf I (1218–1291) from the Habsburg family over the corpse of the Bohemian king Přemysl Ottokar II (1233–1278) after the Battle of Dürnkrut and Jedenspeigen in present-day Lower Austria.5 The Battle of Dürnkrut and Jedenspeigen in 1278 marked the beginning of the House of Habsburg’s rule over the Austrian heartland, which was to last for over 600 years and gave rise to one of the most influential ruling dynasties in Europe. The battle was glorified accordingly by Austrian historians at the Viennese court (e.g., by von Janko 1878). The aforementioned wall charts, which were simple prints on cardboard paper, hung in every Austrian school and had the function of demonstrating the legitimacy of Habsburg rule to every schoolchild on a daily basis.

When using such an object as a historical source, it is therefore not only the appearance of the object itself and its material that must be analyzed—depending on the researcher’s research question, of course. In the case of the wall charts, the context, how and with what function these objects were used, is the decisive indication of how the object is to be classified and used as a source. In this case, it is a mass-produced print for propaganda purposes with the clear function of visually legitimizing the rule of the Habsburgs vis-à-vis the inhabitants of Austria-Hungary with the help of a historical event.

However, an object can also be given a further function in addition to its original function. To illustrate such an extension of function, I would like to cite a further example from the Provincial Collections of Lower Austria, where objects have been indirectly assigned a further function in addition to their original religious function—in this specific case by the collector. A small number of these objects from Lower Austria are on display in the so-called Popular Piety Display in the House of History [Haus der Geschichte] in St. Pölten in Lower Austria.6

In the initial phase of ethnology in the nineteenth century, it was mainly interested laypeople without a scientific background who began to collect material objects of a culture, a group, a region, etc., with a specific intention and to write down popular traditions such as fairy tales and songs (Wiwjorra 2006, pp. 42–45). The aim was to demonstrate the typical characteristics of a group, a region, etc., which could be illustrated using the objects and written traditions. These peculiarities could in turn function as identity markers and thus create a sense of belonging to a group or similar (Leuzzi and Schuster 2023). For example, the ascribed affiliation to a European people is in most cases based on the spoken language of the individual. If a person speaks Finnish as their mother tongue, this person is automatically understood as part of the Finnish people—and very likely this person sees themselves as part of the Finnish people and thus becomes a Finn in the external perspective and self-perspective. Language thus becomes part of identity. And religion or particular religious characteristics can also contribute to such an ascription of identity.

Conversely, this means that the absence of such an identity characteristic can lead to a denial of belonging to a group, region, etc., by the surrounding society (ibid.). If the individual does not speak Finnish as their mother tongue, then in most cases this person will not see themselves as Finnish—and society will most likely not perceive the individual as part of the Finnish people and thus as a Finn.

This simple example shows that certain (and often merely fictitious) characteristics can create a supposed affiliation. However, such an affiliation can also be constructed retrospectively from the outside by the collector or researcher attributing an additional, indirect characteristic property to the supposed identity features. To fall back on the fictitious example of the Finnish-speaking individual, this means that the researcher not only assigns the individual membership of the Finnish people on the basis of the language spoken. In addition, the researcher could attribute to the individual that he is a Protestant, as Finnish society has long been characterized by Protestantism. In combination with the Finnish language, Protestantism thus becomes a further identity feature of ‘Finnish’. Many such identity constructions can be found, especially with the development of nationalism in the nineteenth century (Hobsbawm 1992, pp. 46–79). Among other things, religious objects were used to indirectly construct a sense of belonging or non-belonging to a social group such as a volk.7

This can be easily illustrated using the example of the aforementioned folk piety display case in the House of History in St. Pölten/Lower Austria. From the second half of the nineteenth century, folklorists—almost all of whom were interested laymen—deliberately collected religious objects, taking regional characteristics into account. Of particular interest were objects that were used in practiced folk beliefs and that were used alongside or in combination with the dominant Catholicism. Practiced folk beliefs differed greatly between the regions of Lower Austria. In addition to characteristic regional dialects, traditional costumes, songs and much more, practiced folk beliefs could also become a feature of the identity of a region and its population. The objects in the display case in question mainly show objects of folk belief from the Lower Austrian Waldviertel, a sparsely populated region in the north of Lower Austria on the border with the Czech Republic.

In the course of researching the provenance of the objects, it was possible to show that the collector—most of the objects come from the private collection of Franz Xaver Kießling (1859–1940)—was not only interested in finding and preserving regional specialties from the Waldviertel and presenting them to the interested public in his private museum. Franz Xaver Kießling was one of the leading protagonists of the nationalist movement in Austria and was celebrated by the National Socialists as the inventor of the ‘Aryan paragraph’. Kießling had this ‘Aryan paragraph’ written into the statutes of the First Vienna Gymnastics Club in 1887, which excluded Jews from the club (Schuster 2023a). It was the first time ever that an institution had completely excluded people on the basis of their alleged Jewish racial characteristics.

The religious objects on display in the museum in St. Pölten are of course still to be understood first and foremost as (formerly)8 religious objects associated with popular piety in Lower Austria. But one of the reasons why they were collected in the first place stemmed from the idea that they could be used to prove the supposed religious traditions of the ancient Teutonic tribes, which had allegedly survived in the popular piety of the Waldviertel. Kießling always wanted to use his (excessive) collecting activities to provide (non-existent) proof that religious traditions, customs, settlement remains, etc., in the Waldviertel had a genuinely Teutonic origin. For Kießling and his anti-Semitic followers, a ‘Germanic origin’ meant that everything ‘non-Teutonic’ (Slavs and Jews) had subsequently ‘invaded’. This threatened the supposed racial purity of the Germans—for Kießling, the Austrians belonged to the German volk—which is why Jews and Slavs had to be fought against. With the help of religious objects—in this example religious utensils from the Waldviertel in Lower Austria—a supposedly Teutonic original identity was created for the inhabitants of the Waldviertel. For in the understanding of the völkisch movement, the Germans were regarded as direct racial descendants of the Teutonic tribes (Puschner 2001, p. 88). Accordingly, if the ‘proof’ could be provided that the Waldviertel was originally a Teutonic settlement area, this could be used to legitimize their own anti-Semitic agitation. And Kießling, as one of the leading anti-Semites of his time, used precisely this construction of identity to legitimize his demand for the exclusion and expulsion of Jews.

4. Provenance Research in the Service of Religious Studies

The word provenance initially describes the origin of a person or an object. “The term is used in various contexts. Since the 19th century, the so-called provenance principle has been widespread in archiving, according to which archival material is organized according to its origin and context of creation […]” (Zuschlag 2022, p. 11). Nevertheless, it is generally believed that provenance research deals primarily with so-called ’looted art’. This means that it attempts to establish complete proof of origin for an object that is suspected of having been unlawfully taken from its original owner through expropriation, fraud or looting. Particularly during the violent regimes of National Socialism and Communism, as well as in connection with colonialism, such ‘art theft’, occurred on a massive scale—although, of course, it was not only art objects that were involved. Provenance research accordingly examines

“[…] the origin and history of works of art and other cultural assets—ideally from their creation, for example in the artist’s studio, through all changes of ownership and location to their current storage location. It is dedicated to the reconstruction of object biographies in the respective historical context, i.e., on the one hand it examines the circumstances under which objects have changed their location and owner, but on the other hand also the changes in function, meaning and representation as well as physical changes over the course of time. It reveals the complexity of the material and non-material values attributed to cultural objects in different societies, social constellations and also by individuals. Provenance research is by its very nature contextual research and interdisciplinary, situated between history, art history, economic and social history”.

(Zuschlag 2022, pp. 11–12)

Christoph Zuschlag’s definition is strongly tailored to the classic understanding of provenance research, which deals with art objects and their ownership. Put simply, classic provenance research asks where an object came from. However, Christoph Zuschlag names another area of investigation that provenance research has to address:

“[Provenance research] provides new insights into the history and acquisition strategy of cultural institutions and collectors. It sheds new light on the individual work of art by locating it at the interface of the object’s and the collection’s biography. The provenance of an object has a direct impact on its perception. Anyone who knows the biography of a work of art or other cultural asset (including the shifts in meaning and code conversion throughout history) and the circumstances under which ownership and relocation took place will see it with different eyes. Provenance research thus opens up new approaches to understanding a cultural asset and its reception history through the ages”.

(Zuschlag 2022, pp. 16–17)

In my opinion, ‘the story behind the object’ is a decisive factor, which is why in addition to the question of ‘where from’—referring to the example given of the religious traditions of the Lower Austrian Waldviertel—the question of ‘why’ must also be asked—in the example given of Franz Xaver Kießling, the intention of constructing identity with the help of religion (Schuster 2023b). The ‘why’ in this case does not mean the original function of the object—finding this out has always been one of the main tasks of religious studies. In my opinion, however, it is often just as important to know why an object has a certain function in a certain place today. It is therefore necessary to ask when and why a change in function occurred. Formerly religious objects that are now in a museum collection have lost their original religious function and a new function has now been ascribed to them as a collection object. For example, a baptismal font exhibited in a museum is no longer part of a Christian ritual act. It now serves the museum visitor as an illustration and testimony for the explanation and contextualization of an individual’s initiation ritual into the Christian community. In this way, it is not only the collector or buyer who ascribes a certain—ideally even the real—original function to the object, but also the museum employee who inventories the object. Last but not least, the exhibition curator also ascribes a function to the object through the description and staging of the object and at the same time pursues a certain intention with the presentation of precisely this one object. These respective attributions of function—which can undergo many further intermediate steps—are in turn dependent on the knowledge and socialization of the persons making the attribution, on the information available about the object, on the respective social conditions (a church bell decorated with a swastika is perceived completely differently by—most—viewers today than it was in 1939), on personal and, for example, political experiences and influences, and many other factors.

‘The story behind the object’ thus becomes an integral part of the scientific study of religious objects and gets to the bottom of the motivation and intention for collecting or acquiring them. This is not an end in itself. As already shown in the example of the religious objects from the Waldviertel, the findings of provenance research reveal a completely different intention on the part of the collector than one would generally assume. The objects were instrumentalized and ‘recoded’ for the collector’s goals. Ultimately, religious objects can even undergo a complete change in meaning and function: The rededication of the Pantheon in Rome, dedicated to the Roman gods, to the Christian church of Santa Maria ad Martyres in 609 can be cited here as probably one of the best-known examples. In this example, the provision of information about the change in meaning and function of the pantheon and the contextualization of the ‘why’ of the people involved is to be understood as the core task of provenance research as an auxiliary science of religious studies. To this end, provenance research, which can be of great benefit to religious studies, integrates the history of knowledge, the history of ideas, the history of socio-political discourse and, of course, different cultural study approaches depending on the object. This in turn enables us to reconstruct the history of the reception of a religious object at different times and in different places. If a religious studies scholar deals with the works of a particular person, it is usually essential to include that person’s biography and social environment in the analysis. And this should also be the approach when working with religious objects, for which provenance research provides the appropriate tools. In relation to national identity constructions, the project Transfer of Cultural Objects in the Alpe Adria Region in the 20th Century was the first to examine the displacement and subsequent instrumentalization of material cultural objects in attempts to form, recode or even destroy national identities.9 With regard to religious objects, one could also ask about the change in function and the intentions associated with the relocation of the object (for example from a church to a museum).

5. The Question of ‘Why’

It is easy to explain why the question of ‘why’ is justifiably relevant in relation to an object: If an object is integrated into a collection through looting, purchase or donation, the institutions or individuals responsible are pursuing a specific intention. This intention can in turn be subdivided into various areas: be it efforts to representatively expand one’s own collection, political requirements, social discourse and so on. This gives the object a further function in addition to its actual religious function. This in turn can change the perception of the object, as will be illustrated with an example. “What is important is the change in meaning and function that the objects experience through translocations [change of location], what role they play for the cultural self-image in the respective societies” (Zuschlag 2022, p. 19).

Using the example of the objects of popular piety, we know that one of the collector’s aims was to demonstrate allegedly continuing Teutonic traditions with the help of religious objects. The constructed traditions were then used to legitimize his own racist anti-Semitic world view. Although the object is still perceived as an original component of popular piety in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel, the collector ascribes a further function to it. Accordingly, provenance research in the service of religious studies must not only ask about the origin of individual objects or entire collections, but also about the intention behind their inclusion in a collection. There is a big difference whether an object was deliberately integrated into a museum collection to pursue a specific goal. Or whether the object arrived in Europe as a ‘trophy’ in a colonial context, for example, and ended up in a particular collection there by chance over the course of time (for the latter, see Ahrndt et al. 2020).

With such a question, provenance research makes an essential contribution to reconstructing the creation, expansion and maintenance of museum collections, making them accessible to religious studies as an object of investigation. At the same time, it shows how museums not only react to social discourses but can also actively shape social discourses. Through the presentation and the way in which10 certain objects are presented, they in turn influence the public perception of a complex of topics and thus the social discourse. The so-called ‘Wehrmacht exhibitions’ of the Hamburg Institute for Social History Research [Hamburger Institut für Sozialgeschichtsforschung] on the crimes of the German army in the Second World War, for example, have profoundly and lastingly changed public perception of German soldiers—and thus in many cases the perception of their own fathers and grandfathers (Thamer 2007). In the case of Franz Xaver Kießling, we know that there was a sign at the entrance to his private museum in Drosendorf/Lower Austria stating: “Entry only permitted to Aryans” (Steininger 1994, p. 51). In addition, Kießling himself guided the—in this case very few—visitors to his museum through his collection. From this it can be concluded that Kießling very probably explained his anti-Semitic and nationalist convictions to the visitors on the basis of the objects. Especially as Kießling cited individual objects as examples of his interpretations of Teutonic continuities in pamphlets and populist publications. Kießling at least attempted to influence social discourse in relation to Jews and Germanness. His friend Guido List (1848–1919), the founder of the racist-occult Ariosophy, was far more ‘successful’ at this, with List adopting some of his historical and anti-Semitic interpretations from Kießling (Goodrick-Clarke 2004, p. 40). Vienna-born Karl Maria Willigut (1866–1946), the closest advisor to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) in the early years of the Third Reich (Longerich 2008, p. 292), also referred to Kießling’s interpretations in his occult interpretations of the Teutonic heritage in Lower Austria (Goodrick-Clarke 2004, p. 156).

In my opinion, provenance research as a method of religious studies must also ask why and by whom a collection or religious object has been classified as worthy of collection. The social and historical context and, if possible, the biographical backgrounds of the people involved should also be taken into account. Building on this, provenance research must continue to ask how the respective collection or religious object was intended to directly serve certain discourses and/or narratives and what intentions were pursued with that collection. Thinking further, such a method also allows us to ask on the basis of which discourses, narratives or ideas a religious object has found its way into a collection. Following on from this, it is possible to ask how social discourses and narratives should be influenced or have been influenced by the possible representation of that object. The religious object in the form of collections or individual objects is accordingly understood as a carrier of ideas. The challenge here is to reconstruct the ideas and intentions associated with the religious object. In doing so, the different political and social periods must be considered as epochs that changed the perception of the individual religious object. Forced social cohesion and also change can be reconstructed on the basis of museum collections and at the same time social change can be shown as an influencing factor on museum collections. And this also includes objects that were originally directly linked to religion. The international discussions about the restitution of museum objects with a colonial background are an impressive reflection of social change: fifty years ago, public debates about the restitution of museum objects from colonial contexts would have been unthinkable on such a societal scale.

6. The Interplay Between Religious Studies and Provenance Research Using the Example of Dolls

Finally, I would like to illustrate provenance research as an additional method of religious studies for researching sources using the example of the toy collection of the Lower Austrian State Collections. Toys in museum collections are a classic example of the changing functions of objects. If the originally attributed function of a toy was to be an object for children (or some adults) to play with, this changes completely when it is included in a museum collection.

“On the one hand, it gains significance, is called upon as a witness of its time and is cited as a miniaturized reflection of cultural history and is even subject to scientific research. On the other hand, at the same time, it loses its essential characteristic: from now on, it is usually only allowed to play with things in name. This is because toys that have become museum objects—detached from their original purpose—remain behind display case panes, removed from the playful grasp of children’s hands” (Stangler 1987, p. 7). It is the same with toys as with the aforementioned church baptismal font: the original function of the object is completely removed by its inclusion in a museum or private collection; the use of the object in the sense of its original function is even directly prevented.

In 1994, the Provincial Collections of Lower Austria acquired the private toy collection of the Viennese surgeon Erwin Mayr and transferred it to its holdings. The collection contains around 11,000 objects, all of which have been recorded and inventoried. One problem that museum collections face when taking over private collections concerns the attribution of the individual objects. In the case of the toy collection, for example, the collector Erwin Mayr interpreted all of his objects as toys without exception. In quite a few cases, however, the origin and original function of the objects are not known at all. In most cases, the information about the objects came from Mayr himself. Mayr built up a large part of his collection through purchases at flea markets, auctions and from antique dealers (Peschl and Resch 2024, p. 82). However, in many cases it remains unknown where he got his information about the objects. Accordingly, the information available must—ideally—first be checked and confirmed by provenance research before the objects can be used as a source by researchers.

Once again, we are dealing with an external attribution at this point. The social conditioning and socialization—and of course the collector’s professional knowledge—have a significant influence on the attribution of an object’s function. What is regarded as a toy in a Central European, bourgeois and Christian-influenced context due to certain characteristics and peculiarities need not have originally been a toy at all. There should be little debate that the dolls shown here—I have simply picked out the most beautiful pictures—were used as toys. But of course some of the pieces could also have been used exclusively for representational purposes. Or it could be a rare collector’s item that was never used as a toy. The possibilities are endless.

As already mentioned, however, it is a major problem if the objects are mislabeled and then exhibited in a completely different context. From 25 April to 2 November 1987, the Schallaburg in Lower Austria hosted the exhibition “Toys, games and “gimmicks” [Spielzeug, Spiel und Spielereien] with items on loan from Austrian and international museums. The exhibition catalog of the same name (Kutschera 1987) contains a large number of descriptions of dolls, which over 200,000 visitors were able to admire.

It is not the purpose of this paper to present the provenance of the dolls cited here as examples. Rather, the descriptions are intended to draw attention to the problem identified. The problem is most impressively illustrated by the object ‘articulated doll’ [Gliederpuppe] (catalog number 1.7). This object is assigned to the exhibition area ‘Egypt’. Additional object data is given: “Wood, origin unknown, 25th Dynasty (?), c. 700 BC” The object is described as follows in the exhibition catalog:

“In contrast to today’s dolls, only the lower legs were movable, not the whole legs—with stiff knees. Like the attached arms, they are now missing. The doll was probably painted”.

(Kutschera 1987, p. 15)

With such a description, especially in an exhibition on the subject of play and toys, the viewer of the object can only come to the conclusion that it is a doll from Ancient Egypt with a former function as toy. Thanks to the inventory number given, however, it quickly becomes clear that it was not a toy at all, but originally a religious object. The Egyptian Museum Berlin, which owns the object ‘Statuette of a naked Nubian woman, arms and legs were worked separately’ [Statuette einer nackten Nubierin, Arme und Beine waren separat gearbeitet], describes it as follows:

“[…] Since predynastic times, statuettes of naked women have been placed in the graves of women, men and children in Egypt and Nubia as a symbol of fertility and a guarantee of rebirth. The possible location of Dra Abu el-Naga could also indicate an origin from a funerary context. Comparative examples can be found from the Middle Kingdom and above all from the 25th Dynasty […]”.11

The description of the object clearly shows that it was by no means a toy. In many cases, it was a decidedly religious object that was associated with death and rebirth. The problem with the statuette is obvious: the object was exhibited as something it had never been—a toy. Why this mistake was made is of no further interest at this point. Nor whether the Egyptian Museum in Berlin may have interpreted the object completely differently in 1987.

It will be a similar case with object number 3.99 from the same exhibition: a rag doll from the thirteen to fourteenth century from what is now Peru—it is not known whether the doll comes from the Inca culture—is described and exhibited here simply as a toy. The object text reads: “From a child’s grave, with clothing partly woven in tapestry technique” (Kutschera 1987, p. 43). Of course, it could also be that a toy was placed in the child’s grave, as is often the case at children’s funerals today. However, the very first assumption would be that it was a religious object. Where the assumption that it was once a toy comes from remains uncertain.

However, the big problem arises when such an object has already been incorrectly included in a collection. The last two examples are taken from an exhibition, which means that it is possible that the objects were nevertheless declared as religious objects in the respective collection (as in the example from ancient Egypt), but were suddenly reinterpreted as ‘toys’ by the exhibition organizers.

I would like to come back to the toy collection in the Lower Austrian State Collections to illustrate this problem: As written, the collection was built up by a private collector and later handed over to the State Collections. This means that most of the information on the individual objects comes from the collector himself and is usually taken over by the museums. However, it usually remains completely unclear where the collector obtained the information from. To stay with the example of the toy collection of the Lower Austrian State Collection, the problem can be illustrated very clearly. According to one report, what is probably the oldest item in the collection is a Greek doll’s head from the fourth century BC (Stangler 1997, p. 6). Unfortunately, I have been unable to find either a picture or a description of the object, but I have my doubts as to whether the dating is at all accurate and whether it was actually a toy in its original use. Unfortunately, it remains completely unclear where the information about the dating and type of object comes from. Only with the help of provenance research could the object be made accessible for religious studies research.

If individual supposed toys were exhibited, they were not selected on the basis of specific characteristics. In the permanent exhibition on toys at Schallaburg in the 1990s, for example, a doll from Java was shown—unfortunately I have not yet been able to find out which doll it was, as there are no pictures or descriptions. The doll was not contextualized, i.e., whether it was actually originally a toy, when it was made and so on. The only criterion for exhibiting such an object was the fact that it was supposedly a toy from a “distant country”. This is where the real problem becomes clear once again: due to a lack of background information, an object was simply attributed an original function as a toy because it fitted in well with the collector’s ideas. This lack of background knowledge gives rise to two fundamental problems: on the one hand, visitors may have been presented with something as a toy at this point, but which very probably originally had a completely different function. However, this function was either not recognized by the collector or deliberately ignored. The alleged doll from Egypt mentioned above, which was shown in the 1987 exhibition, can serve as a cautionary example here.

The second point is that these dolls are now inventoried in the State Collection of Lower Austria under the collection area of ‘Historical Toys’. The information provided when the collection was handed over was simply transferred to the object database. However, this should not be seen as a reproach to the staff, as there were simply no resources available for in-depth provenance research. However, if the object was not originally a toy and the description as a doll proves to be incorrect—again, we refer to the alleged doll from Egypt—then the object cannot be used for research, for example, in religious studies. With six million objects in the State Collection of Lower Austria, this object would only be found in the database under the terms ‘toy’ and ‘doll’. However, if it was originally a cult object, for example, and a religious scholar were to search for the same object in museum collections, he or she would certainly never find it—unless the researcher has enough fantasy to search for a religious object under the keyword ‘toy’. This is where the problem of intention becomes apparent: the private collector had the intention of collecting toys. Due to a lack of specialist knowledge, he may have included objects in his collection that were not originally toys or dolls at all. They only became toys or dolls through the collector’s intention

In 2010, individual objects from the ‘Historical Toy’ collection of the State Collection of Lower Austria were restored and the entire collection was conserved and fully inventoried. Unfortunately, the provenance of individual objects was not clarified in this context. Accordingly, the report on the conservation of the collection assumes that all objects in the collection were actually toys in their original function (Putzgruber et al. 2015, pp. 303–5). As shown, however, it must be assumed that some of the objects in this collection were not originally toys at all. Rather, it can be assumed that some of the objects originally had a religious background.

This becomes particularly clear with my last example: doll’s houses. Dollhouses are almost always understood as toys or accessories for dolls and are also listed with such keywords in the corresponding object databases. However, we also know that from the eighteenth century onwards, dollhouses had a different function in the middle classes: working ovens, irons, etc., were integrated into the dollhouses in order to prepare girls for their future role as ladies of the house at an early age. In wealthy middle-class circles, a dollhouse had the function of an educational tool rather than a toy (Stangler 1996, p. 24). At this point, the question must be allowed as to what toy function the object SZ-PUP-N-85 in the State Collections of Lower Austria was originally supposed to have had?12 Unfortunately, there is no information (that I know of) about where this object came from and when it was made. It is listed as a dollhouse in the ‘Historical Toys’ collection of the State Collection of Lower Austria. I believe it is impossible that this was a classic dollhouse that was intended solely as a toy for children. Due to the lack of further information, it is not possible to say whether it was originally an object with a religious function or at least an object with which religious content was to be conveyed through play. In any case, this example shows very clearly that this object is only accessible for religious studies research by chance. The object is listed in a museum collection as a dollhouse in a historical toy collection. There is nothing to suggest a possible religious background. And due to the lack of such information, no researcher would normally be able to find such an object in the corresponding inventory. Only provenance research offers the possibility of finding out the relevant background information and making this object accessible as an object of study for religious studies research.

7. Conclusions

The paper aims to point out the problem that, firstly, religious objects in museums are a category of sources that have been relatively little used in religious studies research to date. Secondly, it has been shown that in order to use such objects, it is essential to first examine their historical and religious context with the help of provenance research. If researchers from the field of ‘material religion’ or the many other fields of religious studies use objects from museum collections for their scientific research, provenance research should be carried out before the actual scientific work, according to my core thesis.

The examples given are merely intended to illustrate how important provenance research is as a method if religious studies wishes to use religious objects in museums as additional sources in the future. Just one museum collection and one exhibition have already shown how quickly completely incorrect attributions and misinterpretations can occur. Provenance research on museum objects has so far been used almost exclusively in the context of so-called looted art from the context of colonialism and National Socialism. Even without a quantitative survey, it can be assumed that the problems of attribution and interpretation, as presented here on the basis of a single museum collection, are transferable to the vast majority of museum collections.13 The academic expert in the field of religion should therefore—if he or she wishes to use museum objects as a source—critically scrutinize the available information about the object with the help of provenance research. This is not to say that there has been no source criticism whatsoever in religious studies with regard to religious objects. Any questioning, for example, of whether the existing object was actually once a baptismal font, is already a form of source criticism. Rather, the considerations presented here are intended to express that provenance research is an auxiliary science with the help of which religious objects can and should be systematically examined with regard to their origin, coding, former owners, interpretation, and representation. In this way, they avoid adopting existing incorrect classifications and interpretations, which in turn will lead to errors in their own research. By conducting provenance research first as an additional method of religious studies, such a chain of errors can be avoided. Of course, the author is aware that hardly any scholar can, in addition to their actual research on the objects, conduct a complete investigation of the provenance of each individual object. This would place an extraordinarily high financial and time burden on a project. If the collection of objects to be worked with is too large for a complete provenance investigation, random samples must at least be taken. This gives the researcher an insight into how accurately the objects in the respective collection have been recorded and documented. In this way, the available information on the collection is checked on a random basis, allowing a systematic assessment of whether the collection and the available information can be worked with at all. Depending on the number of objects and the available background information on them, the researcher must decide for themselves whether to stick to random sampling or to integrate provenance research into their research project as early as the concept phase.

Regardless of the resulting source criticism of material objects, provenance research, as shown, generally raises completely new questions for religious studies when provenance research is specifically used as a method. The social discourses and political conditions within which museum objects are presented, as well as the selection of the objects in exhibitions—and their non-selection—offer scholars from the humanities and social sciences a multitude of opportunities to make narratives and social transformation processes in the past and present visible. In order to enable such a use of museum collections for cultural studies, it is first and foremost necessary to process them. If the origins, acquisition processes, acquisition intentions and presentation histories of objects or entire collections are largely known, museum objects can be used profitably as a source for religious studies research. And perhaps we will then know what the doll from Java or the alleged dollhouse actually was and what function it originally had before they were turned into a toy by the collector or exhibition curator.