Scholarship across barriers – the social history of the Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum

Abstract

This paper traces, through the preserved correspondence of Prof Howard Comfort (1904–1993) of Haverford College, Pennsylvania the recovery after the Second World War of the unpublished catalogue of makers’ marks on Italian terra sigillata pottery which had been compiled over many years by August Oxé (1863–1944) of Krefeld, Germany. The manuscript had in 1944 been placed in safe keeping in Marburg; permission was obtained for it to be sent to the USA, where it was translated into English and edited. It was eventually published in Germany in 1968. The correspondence also paints a vivid picture of the difficulties of life in different parts of Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war.