Museums hold objects, but they also hold the histories of how these objects were collected. As international initiatives increasingly address problematic histories, such as Nazi looting and the legacies of empire embedded in cultural heritage, there is a growing recognition that the histories and provenance of collections demand critical scrutiny (Schuhmacher 2024; Andratschke et al. 2023). Museums in the United Kingdom have demonstrated commitment to highlighting these legacies. However, much of this research continues to focus on prominent objects and major dealers or collectors, often obscuring the contributions of lesser-known agents, including women, small-scale contributors, and non-European figures. Recent work in digital humanities suggests that large-scale, data-driven methodologies can help reveal broad patterns and overlooked structures that traditional qualitative research cannot easily capture (Greenwald 2021).

This short paper presents initial results from a pilot study within a doctoral project that investigates the acquisition history of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s (V&A) Asia collection quantitatively. The V&A holds one of the most important Asia collections in the world, comprising more than 170,000 objects originating from East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, acquired since its foundation in 1852. The pilot study focuses on East Asian objects acquired between 1852 and 1912, a period that saw a rapid expansion of British collecting of Asian materials, many of which were closely entangled with trade, diplomacy, and imperialism. The aim is to test whether quantitative methods and network analysis can help reconstruct the networks that supported such acquisitions, recover marginalised actors, and provide more reflective interpretations of institutional development and the power dynamics that shaped the collection.

The study draws primarily on scholarship in the history of collections and in digital humanities. Within collecting history, early work privileged individual agency, framing collectors’ motivations as central to object biographies (Pearce 1995; MacGregor and Impey 2001). Institutional histories subsequently highlighted how governance, organisational priorities, and political contexts shape collection development (Burton 1999; Kirchberg and Zembylas 2025). Yet these approaches risk either reinforcing a “collector-as-hero” narrative (Burgess 2021; Hunt 2012) or producing inward-looking autohistories (Bowyer et al. 2024). Rather than aligning strictly with either a collector-focused or institution-focused paradigm, this study challenges that binary by focusing on the dynamic interplay of human and non-human actors within acquisition networks, drawing on Bruno Latour’s (2005) Actor-Network Theory.

At another level, colonial collecting studies have foregrounded museums’ roles in constructing imperial knowledge and identity (Said 1978; Bennett 1995; Coombes 1994). Restitution debates and demands for political accountability have further advanced research into contested collections, including V&A holdings from Ethiopia, Asante, and Burma (Jones 2019; Patterson 2019; Clarke 2021). However, East Asian collections remain comparatively underexplored, and scholarship often focuses on spectacular instances of looting. This study responds by analysing East Asian acquisition histories at scale, revealing broader structural patterns beyond isolated case studies.

While most collecting history research relies on qualitative methods and case studies, digital humanities shows that treating collection records as structured data enables complementary quantitative insights. Projects such as the Relational Museum and The Other Within at the Pitt Rivers Museum used statistical analysis and network modelling of catalogue databases to trace the evolving shape of the collections (Gosden et al. 2007; Larson et al. 2007; Wingfield 2011). Similar data-driven approaches at the Linden Museum Stuttgart, National Museums Scotland, and the British Museum have uncovered historical patterns, including colonial connections, through the analysis of collection databases (Grimme 2020; Phillipson 2019; MacDonald 2023).

Informed by these methodological advances, the study adopts a “Collections as Data” approach. While most previous work relies on datasets exported directly from museum databases, this study complements and enhances existing digital records by reviewing historical acquisition documents, resulting in a more comprehensive acquisition dataset. The dataset was further standardised for computational analysis, including the normalisation of names, acquisition methods, and locations, and the grouping of individual objects into acquisition events. Two forms of analysis were then combined. Statistical analysis provided a chronological overview of collecting activity, while network analysis revealed how people, objects, and places were linked within the collection. A multimodal network was constructed that includes actors involved in acquisition, the origins of objects, and their material categories, allowing the identification of individuals and relationships that played significant roles.

The results show the value of this multi-method approach. A famous purchase of more than 23,000 Japanese prints in 1886 produces a dramatic spike in object numbers if we count items alone (Figure 1). When the data are examined at the level of acquisition events (Figure 2), however, collecting appears more consistent across multiple decades, while highlighting a surge after 1909, when the museum rearranged collections and displays by material and began introducing specialist curators (Burton 2015).

Network analysis further highlights the structure of the collection’s acquisition history. Figure 3 shows the complete multimode acquisition network developed using Gephi, linking 694 acquisition events to 525 sources in total. Most sources contributed through one-off interactions, resulting in a sparse network with a small-world tendency shaped by shared geographical and material attributes. Analysis of central actors shows two dominant modes of contribution: frequent but small-scale transactions via vendors and donors, and a “collection of collections” absorbed through one-off major bequests. Betweenness centrality analysis also reveals that some donors – including women who are otherwise marginalised in historical records, as well as diplomatic officials of the British Empire – played disproportionately important roles in shaping the diversity of the holdings.

The project offers two main contributions. First, it supports a quantitative reconstruction of the V&A’s East Asian acquisition history, allowing broad patterns and trends to emerge while also revealing actors that are underrepresented in traditional accounts. Second, it develops a practical digital approach that can be applied in other museums. In later stages, the study will be expanded to the whole of the V&A’s Asia collection and will produce interactive network visualisations for visitors and researchers to explore more directly. This approach supports the DH2026 theme of “Engagement” by encouraging active participation in interpreting cultural heritage and its entangled histories.