Iron lace: a donation for the Brazilian civilizing memory

ABSTRACT This is a historical and historiographical study based on a museum object and its catalogue card (object description and information about it). The necklace - a Berlin Iron exemplar, a fashionable European product in the first half of the 19th century - and its museum catalogue card, which attributes its construction to the Royal Iron Factory São João do Ipanema, from São Paulo, and supposedly a gift dedicated to the Empress Teresa Cristina, are indications for hypotheses and reflection on the donation made as a confirmation of the Brazilian civilizing memory. Throughout the search for references for proposing a biography of the object, uncertainties emerged and other possibilities were identified for the piece, which reiterate the huge potential of the material culture as a historical document.