From merchandise to musealia: the Souza Lima Collection of Catholic ivories at the Museu Histórico Nacional

Abstract

This article presents the surveys and conclusions of post-doctoral research in Museology on the Souza Lima Collection, belonging to the collection of the Museu Histórico Nacional (National Historical Museum). Made up of 572 Christian images carved mostly from ivory, it is considered one of the most significant collections of its kind under the custody of a Brazilian public museum. The name of the collection refers to the collector José Luiz de Souza Lima, being purchased for the museum in the 1940s. Due to little information about the origins of the pieces and about the collector, the research organized information to: (1) point to the possibilities of entering the country of Catholic imaginaries in ivory via the Carreira das Indias; (2) point to the possibility of producing, in Brazil, ivory images; (3) understand what were the valuation arguments that justified the purchase of the collection; (4) point out the similarities between Souza Lima’s collecting and other collections; and (5) describe how the “oriental” element was associated with the collection in the musealization process, and how curatorial actions at the Museu Histórico Nacional are marked by a discourse that re-updates in Brazil the Portuguese orientalism. It argues that the curation of the Souza Lima Collection has been based on narratives that value the Portuguese colonial experience and reaffirm discourses with colonial perspectives. This type of approach eclipses informational aspects about the collection, such as its origins and the resistance strategies on the part of its producers, as well as ethical issues regarding the entry of these objects into the collecting and museum collection circuit.