ART on view “A Window on the World”: The Universal Missionary Exposition of 1925 Most of works in the de Young exhibition—and a significant percentage of the Vatican Ethnological Museum’s collection— 86 were conveyed to the pope by Catholic “curacies, prefectures, dioceses, missionary orders and institutes, indigenous religious communities, scientific societies, and private individuals” specifically for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exposition, which was held in Rome from December 21, 1924–January 10, 1925.20 Upon returning from the exposition, Reverend John J. Considine of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America called it “a window on the world.”21 The exhibition, which was prepared by the Propaganda Fide, was global in scope and framed the objects within the context of Catholic missionary activity around the world. More than a million visitors attended. Father Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954), a member of the Society for the Divine Word and who would later serve as director of the Ethnological Museum collection, organized the installation. More than 100,000 works were displayed in twenty-six pavilions to show “in a broad outline the succession of phases in the development of civilization and the influences that shaped them.”22 He “attempted to reconstruct the original cultures or civilizations of humankind, Urkulturen,” where he maintained a universal notion of monotheism was expressed.23 The greatly enhanced Vatican collection that resulted from the exposition was reorganized into the Pontificio Museo Missionario Etnologico in 1926 and was installed in the Lateran Palace, where it remained until 1963. It was moved to the Vatican Museum in 1973. For the Universal Missionary Exposition, the aforementioned Picpus contributed particularly important works from the Pacific, some of which have yet to be fully studied by experts. In addition to the Gambier Islands figures, objects from the Marquesas Islands and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were sent from its collection. Picpus missionaries first arrived in the Marquesas Islands in 1838 and the material they gathered is of great significance. In the Marquesas Islands human images referred to as tiki represent deified ancestors and come in a great variety of sizes and mediums. Massive stone sculptures were carved from basalt for me’ae, sacred ritual sites, while smaller portable figures such as tiki ke’a of stone or wood were used for personal devotion on the me’ae. A unique carved tiki head (fig. 11) might have been part of a type of canoe-shaped container used for burials.24 Distinctive Marquesan tattoo motifs appear on both sides of the mouth, perhaps indicating that it is a portrait, though the identity of its subject has not accompanied it. Instead, it is registered simply as “tete d’idol” and “tete d’un dieu” in the existing Vatican records. Kotue or ‘otue, lidded bowls, were used for storing valuables and for conveying skulls during funerary processions. Of the approximately one dozen extant kotue, the example in the Vatican (fig. 12) is the only known example from the nineteenth century with an elaborately carved lid.25 The refined shape evokes the body of the Marquesan ground dove, also called kotue. Rapa Nui is well known for the nearly one thousand monumental carvings representing gods that stand above the shores of the small island. There are several accounts of the small wooden images of ancestors that were carved by one of the first settlers, Tuu-ko-ihu, who became a master woodcarver with the power to enliven the images. Smallscale carved wood figures continued to be produced and represent ancestors, moai tangata. French Catholic missionary Brother Eugène Eyraud arrived on Easter Island in 1864 in hopes of establishing a mission. He recorded that “In each of their homes there were many statuettes, of about thirty centimeters in height, that represented a man, a fish, or a bird, for example.”26 Such figures were worn on ceremonial occasions to venerate ancestors and assure the prosperity and fecundity of descendants.27 The Vatican figure in the de Young exhibition (fig. 14) is relatively naturalistic in appearance. Rapa Nui members of the chiefly classes were distinguished from others by appearance, in part by the wearing of wooden rei miro pectorals (fig. 13) on FIG. 10 (above): Figure, tiki akau. Marquesas Islands or Mo’orea, Tahiti, French Polynesia. 19th century. Wood. Conveyed by Fr. François Caret to the Order of Picpus Mission in 1836, from there to the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100194. Photo by Scott McCue. FIG. 11 (above right): Head, tiki. Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. 19th century. Wood. Conveyed by the Order of Picpus Mission for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100198. Photo by Scott McCue. FIG. 12 (below): Lidded bowl, kotue or ‘otue. Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. 19th century. Wood. Conveyed by the Order of Picpus Mission for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100214.
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