Dr. Danica Pinterović, as a curator of the Museum of Slavonia in Osijek, independently organised objects that nowadays form two collections – the Clocks and Watches Collection and the Furniture ...Collection – in the late 1940’s at the Arts and Crafts Department. In order to properly value her professional work, we will present her methodology on the example of the Clocks and Watches Collection by reviewing her detailed diary and personal correspondence.
It is important to emphasise that there were no legal regulations about the professional organisation of museum objects after World War II. Museum workers acquired experience from practice and short courses.
In 1948, Danica Pinterović started organising the first objects from the Arts and Crafts Department. The majority of the museum material was not organised and it was brought to the Museum in a short period and in large quantities. She sorted out the arts and crafts objects and opened a new Inventory book where she recorded them, with new numbering. The classification of clocks lasted from 1948 to 1951, and 60 watches were recorded in the Inventory book.
The first task of making an inventory was to unify all the objects in the collection. The clocks were divided typologically into wall clocks, standing clocks, table clocks, and pocket watches. When we compare the information written down in the “old” Inventory book, started by prof. Vjekoslav Celestin (where all the objects were recorded under sequential numbers and one book was used for all professions) with the information recorded by Danica Pinterović in the new one, we can see what she considered important.
Using the information from the “old” Inventory book, Danica Pinterović could copy the time of purchase and the amount paid for the clock, sometimes information about its procurement, but, in addition to a short description, she wrote down the dimensions of the object in the new book, believing that it is important to take note of the basic identification information. In the field Notes, she wrote the estimated value of the clock and the number of the record used when the object came into the Museum. That is how the first phase of collection organisation ended. All the objects were recorded with basic information, they were signed, and stored in the museum depot.
The clocks were indexed by Danica Pinterović and Jovan Gojković. The folder consisted of cards; it was the so-called card catalogue, with three cards for each object. The card dimension was 16.8 x 20.7 cm and the words HRVATSKI DRŽAVNI MUZEJ U / OSIJEKU (CROATIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM IN / OSIJEK) were printed on the header.
Danica Pinterović wrote a detailed description for each clock, its provenance, dating, and condition in the catalogue for each object. She always wrote down the number and the value of the object. The record that came with the object to the Museum was also noted. She wrote down additional information for some clocks (publication of the object or its old inventory tag, for example). The creation of the collection catalogue marked the ending of the second part of the professional work in museum materials organisation.
The crowning achievement of Danica Pinterović’s expert work on the Clocks and Watches Collection was the participation of the Museum of Slavonia in a big federal exhibition “Kućni sat – stilski razvoj kroz vjekove” (“The House Clock – Style Development through Centuries”) in the Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 1964. It was then that Osijek clocks were put into the context of clock making, i.e. the context of the house clock development in Yugoslavia. In the exhibition catalogue, Danica Pinterović gives an overview of the clockmakers and clocks of Slavonia, and ten clocks from the Museum of Slavonia were displayed in the catalogue part. That is how the end goal of the professional organisation of museum materials was reached – its valuation and interpretation.
Danica Pinterović’s methodological professional work shows that, without any legal and legislative directions, but only her devoted work and collaboration with her colleagues, she anticipated today’s proscribed ways of professional museum materials organisation.
This text describes a part of the museum research regarding the professional manufacture of pipes and smoking accessories from the Artistic Crafts and Design Department of the Museum of Slavonia. A ...section of pipes and cigarette holders made from the mineral meerschaum was selected from the Collection of Personal Items, 24 pipes and 8 cigarette holders in total.
Meerschaum is the mineral sepiolite, hygroscopic magnesium silicate created by the erosion of serpentine, also known by its poetic name foam of the sea. It can be worked easily and it looks nice, and during the 19th century it was a favourite material in the European pipe making workshops.
Meerschaum pipes kept in the Collection of Personal Items of the Museum of Slavonia were made during the 19th century in the workshops of Central Europe, mostly Vienna and Hungary. There are no items made domestically, same as there are no known workshops for making meerschaum pipes in Osijek and the surrounding area that can be found in literature.
We have the two basic types of pipe decorations in the museum collection, simple pipes without decorations and pipes with rich relief decorations. The cap at the top of the chamber is specific for both types - silver, brass, or cast from alpaca silver, and the plating on the top of the pipe shank is cast or pressed from the same metal. The most numerous are the carved pipes from the group of the so called falsely dated pipes, six pipes in total, made during the second half of the 19th century in Hungarian workshops.
Two of the pipes are of exceptional quality. A pipe made in Vienna in the 1830s, owned by the landowner from Osijek Ferdinand K. Schmidt, with an elaborately carved pipe bowl and flat bottom accentuated with silver plating. Silver plating and the cap are also decorated with elaborate reliefs. The other pipe probably comes from the male member of the family of counts Pejačević, with a high quality family crest carved on the front of the pipe bowl. The cap and the plating are made of silver, with a stamp for Vienna and a partially legible master’s stamp (GW).
Among the pipes without decorations, we have pipes shaped like a swan’s neck and pipes with tall cylindrical bowls. They mostly have thin bowls, highly elegant, and their surfaces are usually interestingly coloured with the shades of ivory, through honey, to dark brown colours, which are usually formed as the temperature of the sepiolite rises.
Master carvers have signed several pipes by pressing in their master’s stamps, usually on the rim of the pipe shank (Henrik Martiny, J. Hitschman, and an undetermined master Pettico).
The pipes are of various types, and their quality varies from average quality pipes made in batches at workshops to valuable high quality pieces, marked with a master’s stamp. According to their artistic finishing and the harmony of form, decorations, and metal pieces, the most valuable are the custom made ones, with engraved family names, monograms, or family crests.
Smoking cigarettes also introduced the fashion of using a new utility item - the cigarette holder. It is defined as a specially made and finished small tube, used for inserting the cigarette before smoking. Vienna was an important centre for the production of artistically finished meerschaum cigarette holders. Eight of them are kept at the Museum of Slavonia, and they come in two different types, cigarette holders shaped like pipes and simple cylindrical cigarette holders.
The types of cigarette holders made during the 19th century are varied, elaborately decorated and made from expensive materials. As much as seven cigarette holders from the museum collection belong to the group of cigarette holders shaped like pipes, only one cigarette holder is shaped like a simple cylindrical tube, made from a simple wooden tube, and only its tip is made of meerschaum.
With different types of pipes, there are also different types of cigarette holders shaped like pipes.
Three cigarette holders stand out, elaborately carved, of high quality and made in an Austrian workshop, they are kept in their original etuis. They consist of two pieces – the meerschaum head and horn or amber mouth piece.
At the end of the text there is a Catalogue of items made of meerschaum with catalogue information, description, and a photograph.
Among the portraits of the Collection of Paintings and Frames of the Museum of Slavonia of Osijek, there are three portraits made by Osijek painter Arthur Schiffer. This painter was educated in ...Budapest, Munich and Paris; even when he had an atelier in Osijek, he used to come back to these cities regularly. Therefore, he was not much involved into the fine arts of Osijek during his lifetime. The Osijek press kept track of his work and reported on his success abroad, but his works had not been exhibited in Osijek until 1924 when there was a group exhibition on the occasion of celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Croatian Writers’ and Artists’ Club. As soon as in 1935, Arthur Schiffer was classified as a former painter of Osijek at an exhibition presenting the works of Osijek painters from private and public collections. He disappeared during World War II.
The Museum of Slavonia is in possession of three of his oil on canvas paintings, two female portraits and one male portrait. The portraits of the Govorković couple, Ivan and Irma Govorković, were made in 1917. The Govorković spouses were of utter importance for the Museum of Slavonia. As passionate collectors, they were gathering glass items and managed to collect about 150 pieces thereof. In 1942, the entire collection together with the vitrine in which it was kept and professional literature was handed over to the Museum according to the will of Irma Govorković. It is interesting that the customers did not want ordinary portraits. Ivan Govorković was shown in an armchair with a dog in his lap. Although dominated by matt tones, earth colours, the portrait is very powerful in the colouristic sense. The dark accents on the face (eyes with dark circles, moustaches) reflect a confident person of firm character. The portrait is large in size and used to be kept in the home library of the Govorkovićs. Mrs Govorković was portrayed from the waist up on smaller canvas. When portraying the face, the painter precisely copied the physiognomy of the portrayed person while concerning the clothes,he released himself from academic preciseness and put only highlights thereof on the canvas. The portrait requires conservation-restoration works. The third portrait, lacking data explaining how it ended up in the Museum and who it presents, was attributed to Schiffer only whenhis signature was disclosed in the lower right corner of the painting after a conservation-restoration intervention. This portrait shows the semifigure of a young woman standing with her left arm on her hip and her right arm lowering down the body. With her big blue eyes, the young lady is staring at the observer. The painting, like the other two portraits, includes a characteristic neutral background shaped by green tones and lighter nuances around the figure, emphasizing a slim silhouette. This two-dimensional painting with accentuated colours (contrast between the red blouse and the green background, dark bow surface) and no superfluous details, jewellery and solemn clothes, seems mysterious, magical, in the spirit of the magical realism of the 1920s.
The future regular layout of the Museum of Slavonia is expected to present the intellectual, spiritual atmosphere of Osijek in the artistically rich and vivid 1920s and the works of Arthur Schiffer will certainly find their place therein.
Hermann Weissmann (1884-1943 (?)), a lawyer and collector from Osijek, Croatia donated one part of his collection to the Museum of Slavonia and stored another part of it in the Museum during World ...War II. The collection consisted of his family library, a numismatic collection, and a collection of paintings and graphics. He created his art collection in two locations – in the clerk’s office at 9 Radićeva Street and in his home at 4 Gaj Square. Today, it is divided between the heritage institutions of Osijek – the Museum of Fine Arts, the State Archives, and the Museum of Slavonia. The provenance research of the Collection of Paintings and Frames of the Department of Arts and Crafts has identified seven artworks as part of the collection of Hermann Weissmann. It was based on the documentation preserved in the Documentary Collection of the History Department of the Museum of Slavonia and in the database in the State Archives in Osijek. In the context of exploring Dr. Weissmann’s art legacy, his library, which reveals his interest in both art history and art topics, is also a very valuable source of information.
Hermann Weissmann was born in Virovitica, Croatia in 1884 in a Jewish merchant family. In Osijek, in the early 1920s, he opened a law practice and started a family. He was a prominent public and cultural employee in the city of Osijek. With the outbreak of World War II, as a prominent Jew, Dr. Weissmann disappeared from public life. Together with his most immediate family, he was deported to the Tenja camp near Osijek in 1942, from where the Jews from Osijek were sent by train to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He tried to save his life by donating his collections – the library, numismatics, and the collection of Croatian painters, as mentioned earlier, to the municipality (i.e. city) of Osijek.
A record with a list of pictures and books not intended for donation, but listed as a legacy in the lawyer’s office in Radićeva Street and in the apartment in Gaj Square, was preserved. The paintings and graphics are listed according to the rooms in which they are located; in four rooms in the clerk’s office, in two rooms on the ground floor of the apartment, and in two rooms on the floor of the apartment, a total of 34 pictures in the clerk’s office (oils, graphics, sketches) and 29 pictures (oils, watercolors) in the apartment. There were mostly graphics and drawings in the office, among which the oeuvre of Hugo Conrad Hötzendorf stands out, as well as the works of Vladimir Filakovac and Josip Zorman, while the cycle of 12 engravings of the old Osijek is also important. The only painting from the clerk’s office that is preserved in the Collection of Paintings and Frames is an oil painting by Gvozdenović listed as Boats. Fig. 1
The topics of the paintings listed in the apartment are in accordance with the more intimate nature of the space, so this part of the list reveals nudes, intimate and delightful scenes like a mother with children or children in a park, or a play of fairies. Several paintings from the private apartment were identified. The Museum holds a painting of the famous Marinist Alexei Vasilievich Hanzen, inventory code MSO-206046. Fig. 2 The painting shows the Dubrovnik landscape with a summerhouse, in the foreground a pier and two boats in the bay, in the background the Gundulić-Ghetaldi summerhouse, that is, the hotel Vila Solitudo. In the Museum of Fine Arts, there is an oil on canvas by the aforementioned author called Tugboat Pulling a Sailboat on the Turbulent Sea, and further research will reveal which image comes from the Weissmann Collection. The oil painting on the wood from the list is probably A Cheerful Company, a Flemish baroque painting, inventory code MSO-206058, the authorship of which can be attributed to the Flemish painter of genre scenes Adriaen Brouwer. Two unsigned vedute of city ports in identical frames, inventory codes MSO-209618 and MSO-209619, are identified as two watercolors Two Different Ports by an unknown painter. Fig. 4, Fig. 5 Their author could be the Viennese watercolorist Rudolf von Alt. A painting from the first floor of the apartment, Marquis by Francesco Vinea, was identified. It is a typical work of the painter’s oeuvre, and it is interesting because of the markings on the back, which allow the reconstruction of the provenance (it originates from the collection of the German collector Karl Ewald Hasse, inherited by Ernst Ehlers). Fig. 6, 6a
The list of the pictures taken for the Museum in December 1941 contains a painting by Anton Erben that depicts the Upper Town square of Osijek (MSO-154179). Since it was not on the list of the artwork by room, but on the 1946 and 1947 lists, its original location is unknown. As the earliest known oil on canvas representing the veduta of Osijek, it has a great documentary value, and it has often been exhibited. Fig. 7
In 1947, the final list of items from the legacy of Dr. Hermann Weissmann was compiled, which, due to their culturally-historical value, were extracted from the entire inheritance and officially listed as a legacy.
The research of Dr. Hermann Weissmann’s legacy in the Collection of Paintings and Frames has instigated a further search for all the artwork from the collection, as well as the possibility of the virtual unification of the preserved artworks from the Weissmann Collection, located in the heritage institutions of the City of Osijek, in order to preserve the memory of the family and the creator of the Collection through musealization.
The Museum of Slavonia collects and preserves works of art and applied arts in the Department of Arts and Crafts. These are artistic paintings and decorative frameworks, sacred statues as works of ...art and objects of fine craft, that is, applied art. The article talks about how much are those items motives for scientific research both by the curators of the Museum of Slavonia and colleagues experts and scientists outside the parent house. By reviewing the professional and scientific work in the Department of Arts and Crafts, we can see that the greatest motives to scientific research is provided by the collections of fi ne arts: painting and sacred sculptures, and the collections important for founding of the Depatment of arts and crafts: furniture, clocks, glass and ceramics. The ways in which research results are presented are grouped as: an exhibition with an exhibition catalog, publication of articles in magazines, mostly in Osječki zbornik as a magazine published by the Museum of Slavonia but also in magazines of other publishers, participation in professional-scientific gatherings and publishing work of papers in gathering proceedings. Apart from that, the material from the Department of Art and Crafts has been processed by three doctoral theses of Croatian scientists, and presented through inter-museum and inter-institutional cooperation, as part of larger exhibition projects.
U okviru djelatnosti Hrvatskog restauratorskog zavoda, Restauratorskog odjela Osijek 2005. g. provedena su konzervatorsko restauratorska istraživanja u kapeli Uznesenja Blažene Djevice Marije u ...Dragotinu. Na temelju fizičkog istraživanja objekta in situ, dokumentacije postojećeg stanja, utvrđivanja stanja oštećenosti, arhivskih i povijesnih istraživanja te izrade grafičke dokumentacije izrađen je konzervatorsko restauratorski elaborat. U članku se daje povijesni pregled dragotinske kapele uz osvrt na rezultate konzervatorsko restauratorskih istraživanja. Današnje proštenište Majke Božje jedan je od rijetkih regotiziranih spomenika na području Slavonije na kojemu su sačuvani izvorni srednjovjekovni elementi i elementi barokne obnove.
The encapsulated fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is a significant agent of life-threatening infections, particularly in people with suppressed cell-mediated immunity. The cellular ...cytotoxicity against C. neoformans infection is mainly mediated by NK and T cells, but effector mechanisms are not well understood. The objective of this study was (i) to determine whether prior exposure to the cryptococcal antigens enhances anticryptococcal activity of cytotoxic cells in mice and (ii) the contribution of perforin- and nonperforin-mediated cytotoxicity of NK and T cells in growth inhibition of C. neoformans. Our data showed that in vitro exposure of nonadherent (NA) spleen mononuclear cells from nonimmunized mice to heat-killed C. neoformans strain Cap67 unencapsulated mutant of B3501 (Ag1) or its supernatant (Ag2) demonstrated higher anticryptococcal activity. This effector mechanism can be enhanced further after immunization with either Ag1 or Ag2. There is a synergistic effect of immunization and in vitro incubation of the NA cells with the same antigens. Concanamycin A (CMA) and strontium chloride (SrCl
2
) inhibition assays were performed to clarify the contribution of perforin- and nonperforin-mediated anticryptococcal cytotoxicity of NA cells in these events. Treatment with these inhibitors demonstrated that anticryptococcal cytotoxicity of non-primed NA cells was primarily perforin mediated. Anticryptococcal activity of the NA cells obtained from immunized mice after in vitro incubation with cryptococcal antigens was both perforin and non-perforin mediated. Taken together these data demonstrate that in mice a nonperforin-mediated pathway of anticryptococcal cytotoxicity can be induced by immunization. Further research is needed to examine their potential role for human vaccines strategies and/or therapies.
