Paper short abstract:

Through the example of collection items attributed to the Henry M. Stanley Collection, this paper analyses how the flow of time, "that great healer", impacts the grey area of the constitution, and subsequent marketability of collections.

Paper long abstract:

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Henry M. Stanley explored/visited the Eastern Africa, the Great Lakes region, and the Congo River Basin. He did so first as a newspaper special correspondent, then on account of King Leopold II. Concurrently, French expeditions, in particular by Marche, Compiègne, and Italian born de Brazza, as well as traders, missionaries and travellers penetrated from the Atlantic Western Coast inwards. All of them collected pieces for themselves or on commission.

This paper will concentrate on Henry M. Stanley's Collection of African Art (mostly statues, and weaponry), as : (i) he assembled, and kept it; and (ii) it was auctioned in London, in 2002. Analyzing how Stanley gathered the collection, as well as how it was marketed and dispersed during the auction help reveal the various trends at work:

- The historical shifts in the perception of legalities while constituting a collection in the late 1800s compared to nowadays and their legal impact;

- The lack of attention paid by the collectors on the grey areas of their collecting ;

- how history and the flow of time inherently are turning grey collections into white, and debatable, gatherings;

- Shifts of gaze and attention to the criteria of what makes a collecting process satisfactory.

Quite apart from the cultural factors at work in nowaday collecting, analysing these trends helps to assess and quantify how time becomes the best and unavoidable filtering agent of any "Art" Collection.