– 44 –
With the Henry Erfeling Oceania Collection,
we are fortunate to present works from the
Bismarck Archipelago – in addition to the
historical Bruno Geisler Collection – which
have also remained in the family’s posses-
sion to this day and are being shown for
the first time.
Raised in Bremerhaven, Henry Erfeling
completed an apprenticeship in mechanical
engineering at the long-established Teck-
lenborg shipyard in Geestemünde-Bremer-
haven and began his maritime career as
an assistant engineer with the Rickmers
shipping company in 1921.
A significant career move came with his
move to Norddeutscher Lloyd in Bremen, a
shipping company that made a decisive con-
tribution to the economic and cultural de-
velopment of the Hanseatic cities of Bremen
and Bremerhaven. The seafaring log records
of his service between February 1929 and
February 1930 on the TS Coblenz – initial-
ly as 4th Engineer, then from the summer
of that year as 3rd Engineer to Singapore,
where, just one day later, on February 18,
1930, he began his service as 2nd Engineer
The Henry Erfeling Oceania Collection,
Hamburg / Lübeck (1901 – 1990)
on the DS Bremerhaven for the next four
years (1930 to 1934).
The DS Bremerhaven had been converted
in 1928 for island service in the South Pa-
cific. For the next four years (1930–1934), he
transported trade goods – primarily copra,
the smoke-dried coconut pulp – from the
ports of the Bismarck Archipelago, such as
Rabaul, Alexishafen, and Finschhafen, to
Hong Kong.
After this time, he served for another three
years as 2nd Engineer on the TS Scharn-
horst, an express steamer in the East Asia
service.
The center of his life during these years
was the Hildesheim Mission for the Blind
in Hong Kong, where he lived with his wife
and daughter until their return to Germany.
For Erfeling, these trading voyages provid-
ed direct access to the diverse cultures of
Oceania. Upon his return to Germany in
1936/1937, where he began studying naval
engineering, the works of art and objects he
had collected during his travels also made
their way to Europe. These included Chinese
antiques and dance masks from Papua New
Guinea, which were “presented to him as
farewell gifts by a copra shipper,” according
to the archives, and which “in the opinion
of the management of the Rijksmuseum
in Amsterdam, are worthy of being shown
under the same roof as the paintings of Mr.
Rembrandt.”
The memory of this time remained vivid in
the family: His granddaughter reports that
her grandfather owned a photo album with
pictures of Papua New Guineans, from to-
day’s perspective, an invaluable document
of the time. But the pictures, which showed
men and women in traditional, light cloth-
ing unusual for European eyes, “did not ap-
peal to the grandmother and were therefore
discarded by her.”
Hochzeit am 8. März 1931 in Hongkong, wo das Ehepaar mit
Tochter lebte. / Wedding on March 8, 1931, in Hong Kong, where
the couple lived with their daughter. Photo: Private Archive