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The Rosemonde E. And Emile Kuntz Collection

Mr. Felix Herwig Kuntz (1890-1971) of New Orleans, the dean of the pioneer Americana collectors in Louisiana, created a collection known in its entirety and today as The Rosemonde E. And Emile Kuntz Collection much of which is on display in the Permanent Collection of The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) on the museum's second floor. The Collection includes and is not limited to: export porcelains, Oriental carpets, flags, photographs, silverware, carvings, toiletries, miscellaneous personal affects, paintings, glassware, furniture, permanent fixtures, panels, medals, music boxes, maps, coins, stamps, jewelry, etc. The Rosemonde E. And Emile Kuntz Collection in its entirety rivaled that of Ima Hogg, Felix's best friend and collector buddy. Both built homes to house their respective collections.

The Kuntz Collection: Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera holds more than 3,500 manuscripts collected over an 80-year period. The bulk of this material covers the French and Spanish colonial period through Reconstruction in Louisiana (especially New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. The major focus is on Louisiana history, society, and culture.

Mr. Kuntz began donating portions of this collection's Literary, Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera to Howard-Tilton Memorial Library in 1954.

Examples of the collection are numerous marriage contracts and wills as well as original copies (extraits) of sacramental acts concerning the genealogy of several early Louisiana families. There is also a large amount of correspondence. Some of the documents in the collection are too fragile to copy. An example of a cite from a document in the collection would be the recipient’s copy of the marriage of Captain Henri d’Orgon and Magdelaine Duvergés (the original not being extant at St. Louis Cathedral) as follows: “French colonial period, 1753, April 26, Marriage Certificate of Chevalier Henry D’Orgon and Marie Magdelaine Duvergés, 2 pages.”

Through a recent anonymous donation in memory of Isabelle Lafonta Ewing, a friend of Felix Kuntz, Clayton Library has acquired The Rosemonde E. and Emile Kuntz Collection: A Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera. The Catalogue is an excellent guide, calendar, and comprehensive name and subject index to the Kuntz manuscript collection, part of Special Collections of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Emile N Kuntz, surviving brother of bachelor Felix Kuntz, embellished the collection in his brother's tradition, and cared for it until his death in 1980 whereupon his daughters agreed to rename the collection after their grandmother, Rosemonde Elizabeth Kuntz, (mother of both Felix and Emile & aka Momee), and added Emile whose sudden and tragic death most affected them, making it finally: The Rosemonde E. And Emile Kuntz Collection - though Felix was its originator.

The Kuntz Louisiana Civil War Collection, one of the many divisions of the overall collection, consists of receipts, posters, newspaper clippings, military documents and correspondence arranged chronologically from 1811 to 1959. The earliest are bills of sale and lists of slaves. Most of the material deals with affairs in Louisiana, especially the New Orleans area, and many of the letters are to Thomas Overton Moore (1805- 1876) who was governor of Louisiana during the Civil War. The majority of the receipts are written to him for goods and money received by the Confederate government from the state of Louisiana. A pardon for Governor Moore from President Andrew Johnson is also included. Also included is correspondence to Thomas Overton Moore, governor of Louisiana, to and from Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy.

Rosemonde E. Kuntz's wealth was achieved by her father-in-law's having been awarded a legendary diamond necklace by the Hapsburg Emperor MAXIMILIAN of Mexico for outstanding service in representing the interests of the Bank Of Austria to Imperial Mexico before its 1867 fall. Kuntz used the sale of the diamonds to finance various land purchases throughout Southern Louisiana notably in the Oil and Gas rich Terrebonne Parish.

Of Mr. Felix Kuntz's young protégés today only author and historian Prescott N. Dunbar and businessman Prieur Leary survive him along with his nieces, Philanthropist Rosemonde Kuntz Capomazza di Campolattaro and her two sons, and Rosemonde's older sister, Karolyn Kuntz Duvic-Leonard-Westervelt and her three children, step children and her grandchildren - all of the aforementioned of with whom some part of the collection survives.

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