Inventories of the Rudolf Pöch Collection at the Department of Oceania-Australia, Museum of Ethnology, Vienna

Between 1904 and 1906, Rudolf Pöch undertook extensive expeditions to Melanesia and Australia. He returned from the South Sea with 3800 ethnographic objects, 1500 photographs, comprehensive film and sound footage (reels of 2000 m of exposed film and 72 audio tape recordings). In 1907, with financial support from Government Counsel Anton Dreher, his Melanesian collection (tools, household utensils, agricultural and fishing implements, hunting weapons and battle arms, clothing, jewellery, bags, musical instruments, carved door posts, masks and ancestral figurines) was exhibited at the Ethnographic Collection of the Vienna Court Museum of Natural History, to be followed by the new Vienna Museum of Ethnology in 1928.

An exhibition at the Wiener Künstlerhaus from 27 October 2001 to 13 January 2002, entitled “Die Entdeckung der Welt – die Welt der Entdeckungen. Österreichische Forscher, Sammler, Abenteurer“ (Discovering the world – the world of discoveries. Austrian explorers, collectors, adventurers) displayed a first cross-section of Rudolf Pöch’s New-Guinean studies in Vienna.