A follow-up on the 2018 Fire on the Rio de Janeiro National Museum (Brazil)
Editor: We are delighted to include this piece by our intern, Gabriela Paiva de Toledo, PhD student in Art History, Southern Methodist University
On 2 September 2018, a fire devastated the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, consuming most of its collection. The National Museum held in its collection 20 million items of great value to both international and local communities. The architectonic complex itself had historical and artistic value. Known as the "Quinta da Boa Vista" palace, it was built in 1803 to accommodate Elias Antonio Lopes, a wealthy Portuguese merchant, and his family. In 1821, the renovation project took place coordinated by the English architect John Johnston to become the house of the Royal Portuguese family. After the country's independence, the French architect Pézerát altered the style of building to a neoclassical palace. In 1892, in the early Republican era, the former royal collection was transferred to the Quinta da Boa Vista palace turned into the National Museum.
According to the police report, a failure in the air-conditioning system on the first floor started the fire. The lack of proper installation produced a short-circuit. The episode stirred debates on the topic of public subsidy to support museums in Brazil. Opinions are divided on blaming the Federal government for the cutting of funding on the one hand, and the failure of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), responsible for the museum's administration, in the transference of the adequate funds.
The core of the collection consisted of the last Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II's collection, mostly focused on the natural sciences. One of the largest and most important in Latin America, the collection covered different areas such as Paleontology (56,000 pieces), Ethnology (2,000 pre-Columbian artifacts; 700 African pieces), and Archaeology (700 Egyptian pieces; 750 Greek and Roman objects). Highlights of the collection were the Upper Paleolithic period skeleton Luzia (11,300 years old), the three-thousand-year-old sarcophagus of priestess Sha-Amun-en-su (fig. 1; a gift from the Egyptian government to D. Pedro II in 1876), the dinosaur skeleton Maxakalisaurus topai, frescoes from Pompei, and the throne of the Dahomey king Adandozan (fig. 2; a gift from the royal ambassadors to the Portuguese prince Dom Joao VI in 1811).
According to the vice coordinator of the recovery nucleus Luciana Carvalho, the museum lost approximately 46% of its collection, 35% is being restored, and 19% did not suffer any damage. Three hundred pieces of the Egyptian collection were recovered, among them, the bronze statue of Amun Menkheperrê (fig.3, it lost one of the legs in the fire). Of the pre-Columbian and Greek-Roman collections, few pieces survived. Among the remaining artifacts of the pre-Columbian collection are Peruvian ceramic vessels of the Quechua and Moche cultures (fig. 4). The African art collection is entirely lost. It comprised early-twentieth-century Alaka fabrics, royal attire from the Dahomey Kingdom, artifacts from Eastern and Western African cultures, and a significant collection of religious objects used by Africans and Afro-descendants in Brazil and confiscated by the Rio de Janeiro police throughout the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century.
In 2019, the director of the National Museum, Alexander Kellner, announced that 8,9 million Brazilian reais (approximately 2 million dollars) of the 11 million given by the Education Ministry had been used in for the contention of the building's structure and for the restoration and storage of the rescued pieces. UNESCO manages another part of the funding (5 million Brazilian reais), coordinating the palace's interior restoration project and organizing exhibitions. Kellner affirms that the museum will receive more 68 million Brazilian reais (nearly 15 million dollars) from the federal government. Further donations were made by the Association of the National Museum Supporters, the German government (180,800 euros), and by the International British Agency (scholarships for students and professors from the University of Rio de Janeiro to scientific research on the museum).
Sources:
https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2019/04/04/policia-federal-divulga-laudo-de-incendio-que-destruiu-o-museu-nacional-no-rio.ghtml
https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/09/04/politica/1536097870_413822.html
http://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/destaques/balan%C3%A7o_resgatehtml.html
https://imirante.com/brasil/noticias/2018/09/04/incendio-destruiu-acervo-unico-sobre-historia-africana-diz-curadora.shtml
http://museunacional.ufrj.br/dir/exposicoes/etnologia/africa-passado-e-presente.html
