Donkey Harness

Birmingham Museum is unusual for a regional museum in having a major collection of European folk art. This donkey harness from Italy was presented to us by Estella Canziani (1887-1964) in the 1930s, along with a major collection of water colours, tempera paintings, sketchbooks, costumes, ceramics, archive material, and jewellery. Estella and her mother, Louisa Starr Canziani (1845-1909), were both artists who frequently travelled around Europe. The anthropological approach that Estella brought to her painting and collecting established one of the most extensive insights into traditional rural life and the role of the traveller at a turning point in the early twentieth century.

The harness comes from the town of Taormina in Sicily. Even in the early 20th century, Taormina was a major tourist centre, home to a flourishing enclave of bohemian artists and intellectuals, and famous for its festivals and parades. Presumably the Canzianis visited the town for fun as much as research. The harness is a nice example of how traditional life and craft can become incorporated simultaneously into the different worlds of international tourism and anthropological research.