Around 1901, inspired by the Paris World Fair, Tzigara and other Romanian ethnographers first took into consideration the establishment of a permanent ethnographic collection. Like other Romanian intellectuals, Tzigara preserved his special interest in handicrafts, which, art conservator Isabelle Longuet argues, were "elevated to the status of 'national art' " in the belief that the peasantry represented "an authentic 'Romanianness' ". In similar terms, ethologist Ioana Popescu notes: "[Tzigara's] collections were to become the argument and the source of inspiration for the national ideology and creation." His project came after a similar attempt on the part of art collector Nicolae Minovici, founder of the private folk art museum "Casa Minovici", and an even earlier textile art archive, endorsed by Maiorescu (1875).