Tzigara was prevented from advancing in his university career over the interwar period, but compensated for this mishap with other achievements: he was a delegate to several world fairs, the first-ever lecturer on Radio Romania's staff, the editor in chief of Convorbiri Literare magazine, and, shortly before retirement, a corresponding member of the Academy.

[4] Researcher Zigu Ornea contrarily notes that Tzigara may have been spreading the story around, and concludes: "This legend is naturally hard to verify but, in any case, it is a possible one, since Tzigara-Samurcaș was born in 1872 and Carol I was present on our throne, as Domnitor, from 1866.

[6][10] Research into his maternal genealogy led the art historian to conclude that he was of noble Greek and Italo-Greek descent: his supposed ancestor was Spatharios Zotos Tzigaras, buried in Venice at San Giorgio dei Greci (1599).

[17] A while after Toma Tzigara's death, he was adopted by his childless uncle Ioan Alecu Samurcaș (he officially took the name Tzigara-Samurcaș years later, in 1899); he was also helped with his education by the Kremnitzes, who taught him German, introduced him to high society circles, and regarded him as a son.

[1][2] He was a critic of the museum's underdevelopment under Tocilescu's management, and wrote that the disorganized collection comprised an Egyptian mummy, copies of frescoes from the Cathedral Church in Curtea de Argeș, items from the Pietroasele Treasure, and works of Precolumbian art, alongside a scale model of the Eiffel Tower.

[1][2] He later specialized in museology in Paris, hearing lectures at the École des Beaux-Arts and working for city museums,[22] before returning to Germany, where he studied with the preeminent Brunswickian curator Wilhelm von Bode.

[29] The interest in decorative works was a special focus of his visits to England and France—the South Kensington Museum impressed him greatly, as did the workshops of Eugène Grasset and Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

[3] During the fin de siècle period, Tzigara-Samurcaș also began a cooperation with Junimea, the literary society representing Romanian traditional conservatism, and sympathized with the Junimist nucleus of the Conservative Party.

[37] Before 1903, Tzigara became a literary and art columnist at Epoca newspaper, headed at the time by Maiorescu;[38] the following year, he and Alceu Urechia were putting out a travel yearbook, Anuarul Turiștilor, with contributions from Ștefan Octavian Iosif and Ludovic Mrazek.

[41] As literary historian Tudor Vianu notes, Tzigara-Samurcaș and architect Aurel Zagoritz centered their contributions here on the scientific study of Romanian folk art, but their presence nevertheless coincided with Convorbiri Literare's decline in readership.

[64] The same year, he was in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, where he visited the Skansen, Bygdøy and Lyngby open-air museums, but suggested that a similar project would be redundant at home, arguing that peasant society in Romania was only too visible around Bucharest.

[66] In 1909, he authored the album-study Arta în România ("Art in Romania"), comprising his collected Convorbiri essays and edited by Minerva,[67] together with another monograph, Muzeul neamului românesc ("The Museum of the Romanian People").

According to Az Ujság newspaper, the parson was being "unpatriotic" to even discuss the deal; the same source noted that Tzigara also wanted to acquire a stone church in Fildu de Sus (Felsőfüld), which, despite being built by the Romanian Petru Brudu, showed influences from the Central European Renaissance.

[78] The ASTRA conference contained Tzigara' artistic credo: he believed that art was an objective reflection of social and cultural development, identifying the Westernization process, the proclamation of the 1881 Kingdom and later events with a profound transformation of Romania.

[79] However, Tzigara suggested, these efforts did not yet find a suitable answer in the artistic field, that is the birth of a specifically Romanian art phenomenon and the proper conservation of artistic legacies: he deplored the destruction of old Bucharest townhouses and their replacement with Westernized villas; he commended the restoration of Horezu Monastery in its original Brâncovenesc style, but criticized those who introduced Gothic revival elements at Tismana, Bistrița or Arnota; lastly, he expressed support for the "healthy" Neo-Brâncovenesc style of Ion Mincu and criticized muralist Octavian Smigelschi for his work on the Sibiu Cathedral.

In November 1916, shortly before King Ferdinand and the pro-Entente government retreated to Iași, they appointed Tzigara-Samurcaș a custodian of the Crown and Royal Domains, tasked with preventing acts of vandalism on the occupiers' part.

[95] In late 1916 and early 1917, he was in intense correspondence with Ioan Bianu, a fellow scholar and disillusioned Germanophile, who complained about the German Army pressures on the Romanian Academy and asked Tzigara to intervene on his colleagues' behalf.

[95] Such accusations were given ample exposure in Rector Ion Atanasiu's essay Rătăciri naționale ("National Ravings", 1919), answered to in detail by Tzigara's own pro domo, Mărturisiri silite ("Forced Confessions", 1920), and later by his posthumously published Memorii ("Memoirs").

[107] In the end, Education Minister and zoologist Ioan Borcea sent a letter to Atanasiu, asking him to desist frustrating Tzigara "in his attributions without legal decision", adding: "Especially at this moment in time, we find it necessary that peace and harmony be restored for University to function properly.

[15] In March 1929, Tzigara was a first judge at the original Miss Romania beauty pageant, in a panel which also included Vaida-Voevod, writers Liviu Rebreanu and Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, woman activist Alexandrina Cantacuzino and other public figures.

[123] Romanian cabinets appointed Tzigara a national representative at the Universal Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, and organizer of the folk art exhibit at the International Peace Bureau's Balkan Conference in Athens, Greece.

His legislative proposal, limiting the number of academic positions an individual could hold, was probably aimed specifically at Tzigara and other personal enemies (as Lucian Nastasă writes, Iorga was himself collecting some five monthly salaries from his work with the state).

Initially, with war looming, Chief of the Romanian General Staff Florea Țenescu tasked Tzigara with drafting an Ex-ante International Convention Project for the Protection of Monuments and Works of Art, which was never put into motion.

[156] In 1942, he was tasked by Romania's military dictator Ion Antonescu with creating a monumental National Heroes' Cemetery in Carol Park, but the building works were cut short by the reversal of fortunes on the Eastern Front.

"[46] Shortly after the August 1944 Coup deposed Antonescu, the daily România Liberă, which was at the time a Romanian Communist Party tribune, featured Tzigara's name on a list of "national betrayal", which also included Germanophile or fascist intellectuals.

[2] At that stage, plans were being examined for the disestablishment of the Peasant Art Section at the Museum, but Tzigara obtained support from Communist-Party man Emil Bodnăraș and from Presidium Chief Constantin Ion Parhon.

[166] Tzigara was buried at Bellu Cemetery, with a small ceremony attended by family and a few of his intellectual friends: Convorbiri colleague Mehedinți, Junimist philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, physician Daniel Danielopolu and writer Gala Galaction.

[67] Charles Upson Clark also rated "Tzigara-Samurcash" as one of Romania's "best-known modern writers" in the field of archeology or ancient art, with Alexandru Lapedatu, George Murnu and Abgar Baltazar.

[169] Contrarily, a later assessment made by ethnologist Romulus Vulcănescu [ro] rated both Tzigara, Iorga and Oprescu as authors of "ethnological essayistics and cultural microhistory", who lacked a global approach to folk art research.

[173] Although sometimes described as Tzigara's successor, Bernea, helped by ethnologist Irina Nicolau, merged the scientific function into a conceptual art project, which is described by various commentators as a radical break with the interwar National Museum.