Research & Article

The Stefano Cardu Museum of Siamese Art in Cagliari displays an important collection of Oriental art which was collected by Stefano Cardu during the thirty years he spent in Bangkok in the last quarter of the 19th century, while working successfully as a building contractor. In 1914 Cardu donated his collection to the city of Cagliari that is now one of the most important Siamese art collections outside Thailand. This article aims to provide a new and fully documented reconstruction of various phases of Cardu’s life through a comparative analysis of unpublished information available in the archives of Bangkok and Cagliari and works of art in the collection. The gift of the collection to the city of Cagliari is a well-known philanthropic gesture, but at the same time, it hides a complex bureaucratic controversy between the donor and the town administrators, that is here reported through the letters of Cardu and related public documents. Furthermore, this article aims to celebrate two important anniversaries: the centennial of the donation in 1914 and the first opening of the Siamese museum at the City Hall in 1918.