THLEA C COONNGGRREGÉGATAITOIONN O DFU T HSAE IHNOT-LEYS PGRHITO ESTT LI’NA FARFIRQICUAE
FIG. 22 (left): Reliquary
guardian fi gure. Sango,
Gabon. 19th century.
Wood, brass, copper, animal hide,
natural fi ber, bones. H: 41 cm.
CSSp collection.
© CSSp. Photo: Vincent Girier
Dufournier.
143
collections would once again be highlighted. Louis
Le Hunsec, Superior of the Congregation, launched
a new appeal for African objects.21 The exhibition
included paintings, photographs, dioramas depicting
mission life, shown with both masks and fi gures
used in traditional rituals, as well as indigenous
Christian art objects.
After the Second World War, these large-scale
events were replaced by less lavishly produced but
itinerant ones. These traveled throughout France,
including even its most rural areas. The objects from
colonial exposition, but rather in the more intimate
setting of a private mansion on rue d’Astorg in Paris.
The purpose of the event, which was organized by
Daniel Brottier, was to generate support for Souvenir
Africain, a magazine that fi rst appeared in 1922
in order to help fi nance the eponymous cathedral in
Dakar. While the exhibition offered little in the way
of scientifi c explanations of the objects it showcased,
they were at least considered and presented
as authentic artistic creations. In light of the prevailing
attitudes at the beginning of the twentieth
century, that fact alone makes the show worthy of
mention. Father Maurice Briault praised the work
of these African sculptors, “whom one erroneously
believes to be lacking any artistic sense.”17 Guillaume
Apollinaire, who visited the show, saw “marvelous
idols, fascinating and infi nitely precious fi gures,
sculpted by great anonymous artists.”18
This event was the forerunner of another of much
broader scope that the Spiritans participated in
along with tens of other groups: the international
Vatican Mission Exposition, held from December
1924 through January of 1926 in Vatican City. It
was a major show, the stated objective of which
was to reunite in Rome “everything that could help
illustrate the nature and actions of the Catholic missions,
the places where they operate, and all aspects
of their work.”19 To that end, the exhibition presented
more than 100,000 objects and documents,
confi rming the status of the ethnographic collections
as valuable pedagogical and ideological material.
Alexandre Le Roy, head of the Congregation at
the time, asked all of the Spiritan mission directors
in the world to fi nd pieces to send to the Vatican.20
No fewer than forty-two crates of objects were sent
to Rome by the Spiritans. Half of them were given
to the Holy See at the end of the exhibition to help
supply the Vatican’s future missionary
museum.
Five years later, the Spiritans
repeated this experience
at the 1931 Exposition coloniale
internationale in Paris.
A Catholic Missions Pavilion
was set up there, and the
priests of the Congregation of
the Holy Ghost were put in
charge of preparing the exhibition
hall devoted to Equatorial
Africa. The ethnographic