Local history museum and gallery in Česká Lípa

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Main front of the museum, on the left the All Saints Church
Main portal at the church building
View of the museum complex from the reconstructed monastery garden

The local history museum and gallery in Česká Lípa (Czech: Vlastivědné muzeum a galerie v České Lípě ) is of outstanding regional importance due to its extensive exhibition and collection holdings . It is one of the most valuable Czech regional museums. In the adjoining gallery are exhibitions shown.

The museum is under the administration of the Liberec Region (since 2003 owner: Krajský úřad Libereckého kraje ).

Location and history

Today's museum institution developed from various predecessor institutions. Its historical core comes from the former North Bohemian Excursions Club .

Preliminary use in the museum complex

The building complex of the former Augustinian monastery Leipa is located on the southern edge of the old town in the former Marktgasse . The foundation of the monastery complex was decreed by Albrecht von Waldstein on March 12, 1627 as a Latin school, which was based on the model of the Jesuit college in Jičín . He combined this with the intention of raising the city to a center of his manorial rule and promoting the return of Catholicism to the area shaped by the Reformation. For this Albrecht von Waldstein won the Belgian Augustinian monk Paulus Conopeus (* 1595, † 1635). He came from the monastery of St. Thomas in Prague and became head of the monastery and the Latin school.

The monastery as a church institution suffered a violent dissolution in May 1950. An automobile workshop was then built in some of the rooms.

The local history museum of Česká Lípa has been located in the buildings of the former Augustinian monastery (Augustiniánský Klášter) since 1964 , and the district and district archives have been located here since 1960. Later, the museum administration took over other branch offices open to the public.

Prehistory and foundation

The Bohemian Leipa Museum as an institution is older, however. It was created as a non-public collection by the North Bohemian Excursions Club, founded in 1878 as a civic initiative of wealthy people interested in cultural history and natural history, and was opened on October 18, 1900 at a founding meeting of the Bohemian Leipzig Museum Society (statute resolution of June 21, 1900). At that time it was called Leipaer Museum . The museum owes a large part of the collection to the enthusiasm and education-oriented spirit of the industrialist and private collector Heinrich Wedrich (born September 26, 1835 - November 7, 1904) and the adventurous spirit of Karel Löwe (1847 - 1902).

Wedrich ran a cloth factory in the former Bohemian town of Leipa and was a collector of high-quality zoological objects, small sculptures , fine arts , numismatics and portraits. For this private collection Wedrich bought the building of a former inn (Gasthaus Zum Tal Josaphat ) in the city park, where he operated the collection as a private museum before his death. With his will he transferred this collection to the city. His financial situation enabled him to travel to Europe, and he was particularly interested in Scandinavia . From these stays he brought back many collection items that are now part of the museum's holdings.

Löwe was a seafarer and soldier who, during his stays in China, Japan and Turkey, collected various noteworthy cultural objects and sent them to his parents in Bohemian Leipa.

The North Bohemian Excursion Club (NEC) was the first local history association of the German Bohemians in North Bohemia. This was located in what was then the secondary school, across from the monastery complex. In the founding phase, there were considerations to name the Association Scientific Research Association for Northern Bohemia . This proposed name, which is to be understood as a reference to the conceptual orientation of this association, did not prevail. The Augustinian monk and grammar school teacher Anton Amand Paudler (* October 8, 1844 - November 10, 1905) and the doctor Franz Hantschel were among the early and leading members of the association. The latter took on the editorial responsibility for the messages of the North Bohemian Excursion Club (MNEC) , and both supported the literary work of German-speaking authors from the wider region around Bohemian Leipa ( Spitzberg album, poems from North Bohemia ) parallel to the scientific topics . Other early members were Franz Schmeykal and Jaroslav Rilke, the uncle of Rainer Maria Rilke .

The museum holdings grew rapidly due to the diverse range of club activities. The association issued its announcements until the beginning of the Second World War.

Development between 1915 and 1945

In 1915, the association was renamed the North Bohemian Association for Local History Research and Hiking and it was active until 1938. At the same time, the association Český muzejní spolek pro kraj Českolipský (Czech Museum Association for the Česká Lípa District) was established in 1928 and published the local history magazine Bezděz since 1930 .

After the First World War, the municipal administration of Česká Lípa needed a lot of space. Therefore, the Wedrich Museum was closed and the collection was stored. The school inspector Josef Maštálko (1876–1950) gathered representatives of the Czech intelligentsia from the region around 1926 to take part in an exhibition on the commercial and cultural life of the Czech minority in Northern Bohemia. It was set up in Mladá Boleslav and was also visited by President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk . After its closure, the objects and documents from the founding act of the Český muzeum pro kraj Českolipský (Czech Museum for the Česká Lípa District) were used on March 21, 1928 in the villa of Josef Maštálko. This museum began its public work in the newly built Czech school in Haida (Nový Bor) and in the meantime moved to an outbuilding of the Tyršova česká škola ( Tirschs Czech School) in Česká Lípa in 1933 . It was finally installed in 1936 in Zákupy Castle .

From 1933 onwards, the town of Česká Lípa presented parts of the holdings from the Wedrich Museum to the public again in the former renaissance castle Red House (Červený dům). The natural science topics were not represented, as an independent Sudeten German hunting museum was planned, but this was never realized.

After 1945

After 1945 the museum was called Krajské muzeum ( District Museum ) and from 1949 Krajinské vlastivědné muzeum (Regional Museum of Local History). The association, founded in 1928, resumed its work in 1945 under the changed name Muzejní spolek pro kraj Českolipský (Museum Association for the Česká Lípa District). During this time he merged the previously German city museum and the museum of Heinrich Wedrich (MNEC). Since 1952, the facility worked as an Okresní muzeum (district museum), which corresponded to a hierarchical gradation.

From 1961 onwards, the building complex was reconstructed according to the requirements of archival and museum use. The premises of the former Augustinian monastery were used for the museum and its collections from May 1968, because it moved there from Zamecká ulice (Castle Street).

The Augustinian order received the former monastery back in 1990 as part of a restitution , and the Czech state bought it from it in 1995 in order to guarantee its previous use (museum and archive) on its own. The Státní oblastní archiv (State Regional Archive ) received its own functional building elsewhere in 1999.

Building complex

The complex now consists of the Kostel Všech svatých Church , consecrated on November 1, 1707, with an adjoining four-sided building. The altar and some preserved pictures are older than the current church. The previous building was destroyed by fire in 1661.
In 1698 the monks built a chapel in the style of the Holy House of Nazareth ( Santa Casa ), it is one of two Loreto chapels in northern Bohemia. Around it is the cloister (now protected by glazing), which is used as a gallery and for social events.

In this way the area expanded to the west. The cloister is adjoined on its western side by the small chapel of the Most Holy Trinity (kaple Nejsvětější Trojice) from 1761, today's Biber ballroom (named after Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber ). There is a baroque altar in it.
The Holy Staircase (Svaté schody) leads from the south wing in the cloister to an isolated landing at the level of the first floor. Its architectural and religious model is the Holy Steps in the palace of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem .

For the three hundredth anniversary of the monastery, Pope Pius XI. on June 22, 1927 the Church of All Saints was given the status of a minor basilica .

The complex has a monastery garden , which was reconstructed according to its baroque concept and reopened in 2006 for International Museum Day. Its size is 5956 square meters. The open spaces are used as a lapidarium for endangered sandstone sculptures from the area around Česká Lípa.

The buildings, many architectural details and sculptures are made of regional sandstone , which appears in many ways in the area around the city as the edge zone of the Bohemian Chalk Basin. In the interior there are still some old floor slabs made of a Bohemian marl stone / opuka , and for the steps of the Holy Stairs (28 steps) in the cloister a red-brown limestone of the barrandium (type Slivenec ) was used.

  • Church of All Saints from the Augustinian Monastery

  • Loreto Chapel in the former Augustinian monastery

  • baroque portal on the street side

Structure of the museum

The main museum complex in the former Augustinian monastery of Česká Lípa consists of the following areas:

  • Historical department
On the first floor of the museum is the area that deals with the history of the city and its wider surroundings. Paintings and historical illustrations, old sculptures made of wood and stone, hand smiths, everyday objects and objects from the history of craft and industry are shown.
  • Natural science department (botany, vertebrate zoology, invertebrate zoology, ecological advice center ORSEJ, geosciences, monastery garden)
This area shows extensive collections from the classic areas of natural history collection.
  • Archaeological Department
In this section, excavation results and topics from prehistory and early history from the Česká Lípa region are exhibited.
  • Blacksmithing department
This part of the exhibition presents various ironwork from bygone eras.
  • Library
The extensive library has a high proportion of old holdings from the excursion club, which has been supplemented by exchanging documents with other, even international, associations. This is an indication of the extensive work since the association was founded. After 1945 it took on further library holdings from former schools in the region, former monasteries, parish offices and from former Jewish communities. Today all holdings are housed in the main building, and on the ground floor there is a publicly accessible reading room with a reference library.
  • Gallery (in the cloister)
Temporary exhibitions of contemporary art or historical aspects. An old bookbinding workshop is set up in a special area. The importance and purpose of the Holy Stairs is illustrated with historical photos and texts.

Branch offices are located in:

Publications

The museum is the publisher of the following publications:

  • Bezděz (Museum Yearbook) since 1990
  • Bibliography historicko - vlastivědné literatury okresu Česká Lípa (Bibliography of the historical and local literature of the Česká Lípa region)
  • numerous individual publications.

Historical periodicals

  • Notices from the North Bohemian Excursion Club

literature

  • Joachim Bahlke / Winfried Eberhard / Miloslav Polívka: Handbook of historical places. Bohemia and Moravia . Alfred Kröner Verlag Stuttgart 1998
  • Peter Demetz / Joachim W. Storck / Hans Dieter Zimmermann: Rilke, a European poet from Prague . Königshausen & Neumann, Prague 1998, pp. 23-27 ISBN 9783826013546
  • Václav Rybařík: Ušlechtilé stavební a sochařské Kameny České Republiky . Hořice v. Podkrkonoší 1994, ISBN 80-900041-5-6
  • L. Smejkal / O. Sykáčková: Karel Löwe a Heinrich Wedrich - reconstruction dvou umělecko historických sbírek Okresního vlastivědného muzea v České Lípě. In: Bezděz 8, 1999 Česká Lípa
  • FC Watterich von Watterichsburg: Concise dictionary of regional studies of the Kingdom of Bohemia . 2nd edition, CW Medau and Comp., Prague 1845
  • Local museum and gallery in Česká Lípa . Institutional information material. Česká Lípa (self-published) 2007
  • Museum website

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Local history museum and gallery in Česká Lípa. Institutional information material. Česká Lípa (self-published) 2007

Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 9.1 ″  N , 14 ° 32 ′ 4 ″  E