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FATHER VIEGEN FIG. 17 (facing page): Ancestor figure D, accompanied by a document typed by the collector indicating: “Male figure. Hands clasped tightly under the chin, also with both feet. Arms and legs bent. H: 77 cm. Soft wood and light, originally fully painted with lime. Red incised lines. Purchased at the MSC missionary house in 1950. Collected by Father Viegen ... Noordwest River. See P. Viegen in the Annals 1912–1913.” In the course of my research, this sculpture was found in four pieces in a drawer, but it has been beautifully restored for this article by the conservator Nefertari Tadema. Private collection. Photo: Jan van Esch. FIG. 18 (left): Ancestor figure J, accompanied by a document typed by the collector indicating: “Female Figure. Left hand on knee. Missing right arm. Legs straight down. H: 87 cm. Soft wood and light. Originally painted with lime. Incised lines painted red; navel also painted, bands around the legs and painted lizard figure on back. Purchased at the MSC missionary house in 1950. Collected by Father Viegen ... Noordwest River. See P. Viegen in the Annals, 1912–1913.” This figure is visible in figs. 9 and 12. Private collection. Photo: Jan van Esch. 121 about to leave. We will cherish good memories of that simply agreeable and good-natured man … In addition he has written me a check of 700 guilders for building up a collection for the Field Museum in Chicago … so we will not have a lack of money for quite a while.”18 I have been unable to trace when the collection put together by the missionaries arrived in Chicago, but it didn’t consist solely of objects from Merauke and its surroundings. In his book An American Anthropologist in Melanesia: A. B. Lewis and the Joseph N. Field South Pacific Expedition 1900–1913, Robert Welsch writes, “A. B. Lewis … arranged with the missionaries to put together a collection to represent the Merauke area; these pieces included many objects from Merauke as well as from communities in the interior and other areas along the coast as far as the Asmat.”19 Four out of the nineteen shields appearing in the three photographs from the MSC Archives ended up in the collection of the Field Museum. These are numbers 8, 9, 12 and 18.20 The photo in which shield number 18 is depicted (fig. 3) was published in 1914 in the MSC’s mission periodical. 21 Although I suspect that the three photographs of the shields were made shortly after Father Viegen had returned from his journey into Asmat territory in 1912, I have not been able to discover who took the photographs and when. What I do know is that a large part of the Asmat collection put together by Viegen had been taken to the Netherlands later in 1912 by Brother Hamers. It is this Brother, by the way, to whom Lewis probably owed his life. Lewis refers to him in his field diaries: “Stayed at Erauke. For the first month was hardly able to get out of bed. Bro. Hamers of the mission took care of me. After about five weeks was able to get out a little, and take a short walk with Father Viegen.”22 Hamers brought the collection to the mission museum in the MSC Mission House in Tilburg. Part of the Asmat collection put together by Viegen was presented to the Dutch public in this city as early as 1913. OBJECTS ON THE MOVE: EXHIBITIONS Tilburg organized an international exhibition as part of the 100-year anniversary of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was held from June 18 to August 18, 1913. The exhibition grounds of the Internationale Tentoonstelling 1913 included pavilions dedicated to industry, art, trade, and education, among other themes. The MSC was given a prominent place in the education pavilion. In a local newspaper in Tilburg, a journalist wrote, “Among the different departments … the education pavilion takes a special place. … In the front


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