Invisible artefacts

This route explores the life, travels, and collecting practices of Guido Boggiani (1861–1901), painter, photographer, trader and one of the first professional collectors of ethnographic artefacts in the Gran Chaco region (Alto Paraguay and Mato Grosso).

Between 1888 and 1901, Boggiani assembled over 2,500 objects—today preserved largely at MUCIV – Museo delle Civiltà – Rome, including feather headdresses, ritual ornaments, ceramics, weapons, textiles and shamanic objects created by Yshir (Chamacoco), Kadiwéu and other Indigenous peoples.

The route unfolds in six thematic stages. It begins with Boggiani’s biography as an artist-explorer navigating between aesthetic ambition, commercial enterprise and ethnographic curiosity. It then examines the formation of his “great collection” and its transfer to Rome, within a late-nineteenth-century context marked by scientific competition, colonial attitudes and the belief that Indigenous cultures represented a “living prehistory.”

A central focus is the extraordinary feather art collection—over a thousand pieces—whose aesthetic brilliance concealed ritual, therapeutic and social meanings that Boggiani himself only partially understood. These artefacts were not mere ornaments but active elements in Yshir ceremonial life, especially within initiation rituals and shamanic practice.

The final sections shift the perspective to the present. Through recent fieldwork in Fuerte Olimpo (2024), photographs of the collection were shared with Yshir communities as a form of virtual restitution. Dialogues with elders and ritual specialists revealed layered memories, contested interpretations, and ongoing ethical questions: What does it mean to preserve, sell, exhibit—or spiritually “return”—these objects today?

Explore the scrolling journey to learn more!