Objects and Contradictions on the Move From Private Collections to Provincial Brazilian Museums

In 1937 in Brazil, Heloisa Alberto Torres (1895-1977)-who would become the director of the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro from 1938 to 1955-published an article in the first volume of the publication of the recently created Servi4o do Patrim & ocirc;nio Hist & oacute;rico e Artistico Nacional (SPHAN; National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service). It defended the idea that, since the 19th century, and despite the difficulties in obtaining information, private collectors and local and provincial museums had taken an interest in archaeological and ethnographic materials in the country. In this present contribution, attention is focused on the search for information about private collections, a topic that has been little investigated. By tackling new archival sources, the article presents information about some provincial natural history museums and their international exchanges. Second, it deals with the museums of the Historical and Geographical Institutes, while the third part concentrates on collection initiatives in the province of Sao Paulo in southeast Brazil. Thus, this paper based on archival sources reveals new museums and collections beyond those mentioned in prior historiography centered on the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. The article identifies the processes of building collections in these local, provincial museums, and examines the contradictory perspectives on what objects were considered worthy to represent the museums' ideals of modernization as they tried to keep up with what was known about international museums. It also argues that these local museums, conversely, sought to display their own projects in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the larger national or regional museums.