Eduard von der Heydt collected on the basis of an idea of ‘world-art’ (ars una), according to which all artistic products are, in principle, of equal value. Apart from European artworks, his collection comprised numerous artefacts from Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. After the Second World War, he endowed the city of Zürich, his chosen home for many years, with the majority of them. There they entered into the newly founded Museum Rietberg.
Already in 1937, Eduard von der Heydt gave the Wuppertal museum a collection of 80 textile works from modern Indonesia. With this, strictly speaking, he went beyond the museum’s proper geographical area for collection, but his aim was to connect the textile city of Wuppertal with non-European traditions of textile art.
Further non-European objects in his possession, religious and ritual figures and artefacts from Asia, Africa and Oceania came to Wuppertal in October 1962, along with medieval sculptures and decorative arts. The precise origins and significance of all these works are yet to be researched.
