Tag of Episcopal dalmatic from Asunción in Neuchâtel, Switzerland

François Machon, a Swiss medical doctor, and his son Roger Machon, donated collections to the Swiss Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel (MEN) in two different instances, in the 1920s and 1930s. On both occasions, they asked for a counterpart: A dalmatic, stolen in Asuncion in 1868 and later donated to the MEN, and an Iron-Age axe, from the director of the Neuchatel Museum for Archaeology, were sent to Argentina and Paraguay.
These exchanges between a minor collector and a peripheral museum help us to understand how the value of artifacts is negotiated, what makes the scientific reputation and moral respectability of a collector and what were the ethics of collecting (and donation) practices in small museums of the early 20th century. Looking into cases like this one helps us to understand both how these exchanges of artifacts had been perceived in South America and what has been the fate of these objects after they left Europe.

Further Reading:
- Serge Reubi (June 27, 2024). L’autre côté du miroir : une enquête inachevée. SciCoMove — Scientific Collections on the Move. Retrieved February 27, 2025 from <https://doi.org/10.58079/11wcb>.

References:
- Serge Reubi (2023): “How Do Objects Enter and Exit Collections?”, in: Centaurus 65/3, pp. 627–647, <https://dx.doi.org/10.1484/J.CNT.5.135499>.

François Machon, a Swiss medical doctor, and his son Roger Machon, donated collections to the Swiss Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel (MEN) in two different instances, in the 1920s and 1930s. On both occasions, they asked for a counterpart: A dalmatic, stolen in Asuncion in 1868 and later donated to the MEN, and an Iron-Age axe, from the director of the Neuchatel Museum for Archaeology, were sent to Argentina and Paraguay.

amateurs, decollecting, Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel, 20th century, polysemic institutions, restitution

Stolen from the Cathedral of Asunción during the Triple-Alliance-War, in 1868, given by a Swiss citizen Vuille-Bille in 1889 to the Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel. In 1926, on demand of François Machon, consul of Paraguay in Switzerland and Swiss citizen, the object is sent back to Asunción. Its faith since then in unknown.

Object (missing): 1868

Tag: Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Object (missing): Asunción, Paraguay

Tag: Paper - handwritten note
Object (missing): Textile, gems, gold threads - weaving

Project: SciCoMove - Scientific Collections on the Move: Provincial Museums, Archives and Collecting Practices (1800-1950).
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101007579.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the SciCoMove consortium and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.

„Tag of the dalmatic of the Archbishop of Asunción,” SciCoMove, zuletzt aufgerufen am 11. Mai 2025, https://ausstellungen.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/scicomove/items/show/5.