The Eifel – Wuppertal-Elberfeld – Mainz Connections of the Archaeologist Adolf Schulten and the Painter Curtius Schulten

A Newly Attributed Painting in Mainz of the Celtiberian and Roman Site of Numantia, Spain

Abstract

The Eifel – Wuppertal-Elberfeld – Mainz Connections of the Archaeologist Adolf Schulten and the Painter Curtius Schulten. A Newly Attributed Painting in Mainz of the Celtiberian and Roman Site of Numantia, Spain
While this author was working on an English translation of Adolf Schulten’s book »Die Stadt Numantia« (Munich 1931) about Schulten’s 1905 excavations at the Celtiberian and Roman city of Numantia, he unexpectedly encountered a footnote mentioning the artist Curtius Schulten producing a painting of Numantia, owned by Adolf Schulten. The subsequent research led to the identification of a previously unrecognised oil painting by this well-known twentieth-century German, mainly Eifel-based artist. Ironically, it had long been on public display in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM; since 2023: Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie [LEIZA]), Mainz. The assistance of the painter’s son, Marius Schulten, also led to the revelation of surviving, and in several cases unpublished, engravings and photographs from Curtius Schulten’s 1925 Numantia visit. These include local people whom Adolf Schulten would have known and employed on his excavations, as well as an unpublished and undated photograph of Numantia by Adolf Schulten. The painting’s commission, purpose and context, with reference to some other near-contemporary Numantia artwork, the painting itself and a discussion of some of the associated images created by Curtius Schulten are presented here.