Russia in Rome

The presence of thirty-three Russian head-dresses, as well as other historical objects, in the collection of the American diplomat, George Wurts, and his wife, Henrietta Tower, is an uncommon example of collecting Russian folk objects abroad, and testifies to a universality of taste in international collecting during the late nineteenth century. The head-dress collection is part of a larger collection of around 4,000 pieces dating from antiquity to the early twentieth century, which was assembled at the Palazzo Antici Mattei and the Villa Sciarra in Rome between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Wurts and Tower had a particular interest in arts and crafts, which was enabled by Wurts’s career as a diplomat and secretary at the American mission in St. Petersburg for a period of ten years (1882-93). This article describes the key characteristics of the Wurts-Tower collection of folk objects, the circumstances of its formation, and its relation to the tendencies of taste during that time. It also testifies to the transformation of the kokoshnik in the eyes of collectors and viewers from a popular costume to a fashion accessory that was linked to a past world.