The Art of Ivory: Indo-Portuguese Ivories from the Museu Histórico Nacional of Rio de Janeiro

This exhibition featured an incomparable collection of ivory sculptures created in the Portuguese colonies of India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), largely in the seventeenth century. Large numbers of sculptures made their way to Brazil, the largest Portuguese colony in the Americas, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, brought by immigrants, merchants, travelers, and members of religious orders. The collection presented in this exhibition was of especially high quality; it was assembled in various Brazilian states between 1919 and 1930 by José Luiz de Souza Lima, of whom little is known. These works entered the Museu Histórico Nacional of Rio de Janeiro in 1940.

Never before exhibited in the United States, these small-scale, exquisitely carved sculptures represented a range of Christian subjects. Christ, for example, was depicted as an infant, crucified (typically on elaborate wooden crosses), embellished with halos made of silver and gold, or in pietà scenes. Other objects in the collection included portrayals of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Family, apostles and saints, and Mary Magdalene. Although originally polychromed, the majority of these sculptures had lost all but traces of their color.

This exhibition established the artistic importance of a collection of magnificent sculptures, replete with remarkable detail and deep expressiveness that had never before been exhibited in the United States. The exhibition visually demonstrated how commercial trade and the widespread dominance of European cultural ideas influenced artistic production in colonized realms.

The Art of Ivory, comprised of a selection of approximately 100 objects, was curated by Lucila Morais Santos of the Museu Histórico Nacional of Rio de Janeiro.

The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue which is out of print.

^{The presentation of this exhibition was made possible by the Ministério da Cultura do Brasil, Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional, Fundação Alexandre Gusmão, Brascan Brasil S.A., Fundação Oriente de Lisboa, Transportes Fink S.A., Varig Brazilian Airlines, Citibank N.A. at Park 57th and an anonymous donor.}