Brazilian memory pillaged

This is not new, but it is worth reposting. I found it at: http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/exlibris/2005/07/msg00117.html

Disappearance of hundreds of rare photographs: Brazilian memory pillaged

Maia Menezes, O Globo newspaper, Rio de Janeiro, July 20, 2005

The balance of the strike (three months long) of the servers of the Ministry of the Culture was negative for the National Library in Brazil.

Last night, when handling for the first time some works of the collection after the stoppage, technicians of the library had evidenced the disappearance of hundreds of rare photographs - so far 150 had been catalogued.

The inventory was still not concluded, but the president of the foundation, Pedro Corrêa do Lago, already identified that works of at least four photographers had disappeared - Brazilian photographer Marc Ferrez, the Germans August Stahl and Guillermo Liebenau and English Benjamin Mulock - that had eternalized images of Brazil of the XIX Century.

-- We are still making a list (of the stolen works), that will be spread to prevent that good-faith people buy the photos - Pedro Corrêa do Lago said. The Environment and Heritage Department of the Federal Police will make a hearing of the employees who had noticed the disappearance, registered yesterday. According to some workers of the National Library Foundation, the photographs had dimensions equivalents to three postcards. They stand out that the thieves had substituted the stolen photographs for others, also antiques, but without any value. This can be an indication of that the involved people in the robbery had free access to the collection.

The photographs had been seen by the last time three months ago, when they had been presented to a delegation of the Library of the Congress of the United States, in a visit to the Foundation.

According to the President, private security guards contracted by the Foundation had worked all time during the period of the strike. Technician of the National Library had informed that the strikers had stopped 300 contracted men and 300 full time employees that worked there, but the security had access to the building. In

accordance with the Union of the Federal Public Servers, they always had the presence of the direction in the places where the adhesion to the strike was of 100%.

The photographer Peter Karp Vasquez, author of the book "Brazil in the XIX C. photograph", characterized the robbery as a calamity:

- These photos have a very great symbolic value. It was a collection donated to the nation by the Emperor Dom Pedro II. It was distributed between the National Museum, the Geographic Historical Institute and the National Library. It shows the importance of this for the sewing of the national identity. This robbery is truly a cultural attempted. Our history was pillaged.

Each photo can be worth R$ 5,000 [about US$ 2,200].

The Brazilian historian Milton Teixeira also remembers that the works are a part of some 48.236 albums and photographs of the Teresa Cristina Maria collection (named after Dom Pedro II's wife), left in will for the Emperor.

In the evaluation of Milton Teixeira, the photographs could separately be sold for an esteem value of R$ 5,000 [about US$ 2,200] each. - This is the most fabulous collection of Latin America that could easily be sold if it will not have an acknowledgment. It has an increasing market of auctions and the collectors are known - the historian said. Other photos of August Stahl and Marc Ferrez had been saved of the robbery because they are in Paris until December. This collection, of about 50 photos, is displayed in the Musée d'Orsay.

The German photographer August Stahl registered the construction in Pernambuco, in 1858 and 1859, of the second railroad of Brazil. Marc Ferrez, born in Rio de Janeiro and son of a French sculptor, was contracted in 1860 as official photographer of the Court. The photographs of Benjamin Mulock portray the construction of the fifth Brazilian railroad, in Bahia; the German photographer Guillermo Liebenau registered mining images of Ouro Preto and other cities of Minas Gerais in the XIX Century.