“100 Years Elsewhere,” a new exhibition at the Murats

A new exhibition project will enliven the halls of the Murats Museum in Samugheo . From September 12th to November 15th, visitors will be able to admire "100 Years Elsewhere," the Daneu-Tschinke collection .

An exhibition that restores the features of a complex and long-forgotten story, a collecting and anthropological itinerary that linked Sardinia and Sicily and, spanning the entire twentieth century, has reached the present day.

The exhibition, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Samugheo, and Orientare srl, documents part of an ethno-anthropological field study conducted by Anna Rita Punzo (museum director) and researcher Elisa Bassu. This study led to the rediscovery of the extraordinary regionally produced textile collection from the historic Daneu Collection , which today, thanks to the generosity of the heirs, has become a permanent part of the museum's heritage.

The exhibition project will be presented on Saturday 12 September at 6 pm in the Murats conference room in the presence of the curators, the mayor of Samugheo Massimiliano Urru and the Daneu descendants.

"At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as the West adapted to industrial production, the antiques market turned its attention to so-called 'village art' and liberated everyday objects from their mere utilitarian function, elevating them to artifacts of high aesthetic and historical value. It was within this profoundly transformative landscape that Vincenzo Daneu, originally from Opicina (Trieste) but active in Palermo and Taormina, found his work. Capturing the spirit of the times, between 1921 and 1925 he directed his commercial interests toward Sardinia and its extraordinary folk art," Murats explains. And they continue: "A century later, thanks to the generosity of his great-grandchildren, part of the Daneu-Tschinke textile collection returns to its native land, the same Sardinia that held such a profound fascination."

The exhibition intertwines textile works—facciadas, coffers, saddlebags, blankets, and inghirialettos—with documents, period photographs, and autographed letters from the Daneu archive, a precious corpus that traces the antique dealer's travels in Sardinia, his ties to local communities, and the genesis of the collection. The display pays homage to Vincenzo Daneu's visual rigor and echoes the instructions given to his children for the display in the Palermo stores. "With the exhibition '100 Years Elsewhere,' the Daneu-Tschinke Collection," concludes Murats, "not only rediscovers its roots, but also embraces the future and translates a century of neglect into the first chapter of a research project that MURATS will continue to promote and explore."