110 The Krajewski Collection15 A number of events took place in conjunction with the First International Congress of Ethnology and Ethnography, which was organized by Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) and held in Neuchâtel from June 1–5, 1914. These included visits to museums (including to the MEN on June 4); an evening of fi lms, concerts, lectures, folkloric performances featuring singers in costume; a boat excursion to the La Tène site; and even a side trip to the National Exposition in Bern. As mentioned by O’Reilly, a special exhibition of various ethnographic objects was also staged, which included loans from private collectors. Notable among these was André Krajewski (1886–1921), who had collected material in the course of his travels in the South Seas, specifi cally to the Marquesas Islands, in 1908–1909. It also featured some objects from the museum’s holdings. Organized by curator Théodore Delachaux, it was presented in a private home located at 16 rue du Bassin (Centlivres 2005: 144 and 146).16 The minutes and records preserved in the MEN archives reveal that after having compiled the Guide sommaire du Musée ethnographique de Neuchâtel (1914), during a meeting of the museum’s board van Gennep suggested an exhibition that would highlight exceptional objects.17 Apparently this became the show described above. While Krajewski’s Paris contact details appear in van Gennep’s address book (which shows how vast the latter’s network was), how the two men met is not known. It is possible that it was due to the Polish connections Van Gennep had formed as a result of his having taught French between 1897 and 1901 in Czestochowa, then under Russian domination. Also, one of his students in Neuchâtel was Bronisław Piłsudski, the well-known specialist in the Ainu of Sakhalin and older brother of the notable statesman. The Répertoire biographique de la Polynésie française (O’Reilly and Teissier 1975: 296–297) mentions Krajewski. He was a colorful individual18 and apparently a big spender with no excess of scruples.19 He was of Russian extraction, born into a family of sugar producers, evidently spoke seven languages, and owned a racing stable in Paris, the city where his mother, Sophie, also lived with a canvas by Gauguin hanging on her living room wall (fi g. 6).20 After several trips around the world, he developed commercial interests in Tahiti and opened a bank there, which printed its own currency after the war (fi g. 8). The private exhibition in Neuchâtel at fi rst was open only to participants in the congress, but it also was furtively shown to other interested parties. The outbreak of the First World War two months later severed European relations and sealed borders, and Krajewski’s collection was blocked. He himself was serving in the Foreign Legion. Customs permissions having expired,21 an exchange of correspondence between the customs offi ce at Les Verrières indicates that van Gennep was considered responsible for the loan until he was expelled from Switzerland in October of 1915 (Centlivres 2005: 139–142, 149–151). When peace returned, Krajewski was immediately decommissioned and lived at 31 rue François 1er in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Champs Elysées. He vigorously sought to end the seizure of the material, which had been placed in the “empty display cases of the former European room” (Rapport des musées pour l’année 1914, p. 4). Impatient as he was to return to Tahiti, this deal-making businessman, who was to die two years later at the age of thirty-fi ve, wrote letter after letter and sent telegrams to curator Charles Knapp (1855–1921) in an effort to settle the matter. Given his impending travel plans, it appears that he resolved simply to sell the material to the museum. Archival research turned up two typed lists in French, which are not identical. Analysis has shown that the more complete one, which we refer to as List A, is the original one, that is to say, the accurate list of the objects lent for the exhibition. There are a total of 122 inventory numbers on List A (fi g. 9),22 and the museum acquired all of these objects for the sum of 22,500 French francs (16,376 Swiss francs) advanced by the commune. In order to cover the expense, the responsible parties resolved to sell objects seen as “duplicates or triplicates” in order to be able to keep the best examples. They did this at a sale that took place on November 22, 1919. Another factor that made our research more diffi cult was that Krajewski had left several necklaces off the list. These would enter the museum as “Gift of MM. Krajevsky sic and van Gennep.”23 The Saint-Gallen Museum also has a necklace, received in 1914 and identifi ed as “Gift of Van Gennep.”24 The items on List A are partly repeated with different numbering on List B, also typed, with eighty-eight numbers (fi g. 10). The latter must have been created in the process of the intended sale of part of the collection, as it has penciled annotations referring to missing items25 along with estimated valuations. At the public auction of November 22, 1919, objects were acquired by the museums of Basel (fourteen lots)26 and Geneva (nine lots).27 There do not appear to have been any other buyers.28 The sale was not exactly a success, since according to the minutes of the board meeting of February 26, 1920 (page 105), it brought in only 1,317 francs. On List A, the word “Londres” or “L” is added in many FIG. 7: André Krajewski, by J. L. Saquet. From O’Reilly and Teissier 1975: 296. FIG. 8: Currency note printed in 1920 for Banque André Krajewski. Garry Saint, Esq., 1999–2008. © Numismondo.net.
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