Osječki zbornik, Vol. Vol. 29 No. xx, 2009.
Original scientific paper
Numismatic equipment from the Museum of Slavonia - cases, chests, boxes, carton
Hermine Göricke-Lukić
; Museum of Slavonia Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
The paper researches and deals with numismatic equipment
of the Museum of Slavonia dating from the 19th
and early 20th centries for storing numismatic collections
belonging to numismatists-givers Karlo Franjo Nuber, Max
Zucker, Rudolf Normann, Herman Weissmann. It witnesses
the collections that once were kept there as well as
cultural development level of the social environment and
its owners. Besides general data on coin collecting, its importance
and preferences as well as numismatic interest of
the four above mentioned Slavonian numismatists have
been presented. They are collectors-givers who systematically
supplied their collections, stored them carefully and
according to European standards in specialized equipment
and with equal care considered the final destination for their
collections after they died.
The Museum of Slavonia is one of the rare museum
institutions not only in Slavonia but in Croatia holding such
a rich collection of numismatic equipment.
In course of their multicentenary development the numismatic
collections have been stored in designated cabinet
chests, luxurious chests of drawers, chests, leather-covered
boxes. Boxes and chests were locked with snaplocks and
carried, like books, for exchange and displaying.
Coin collections were sometimes stored in court treasuries
beside rich libraries, natural-history samples, equipped
armoury with antique arms, gallery of ancestorsportraits
of older family members reconstructing family
history.
At the estate and manor-house in Valpovo, which had
been owned by two families – the Barons Hilleprand von
Prandau and Counts Normann-Ehrenfels for 224 years there
were 62 rooms with archive, library, armoury of antique
and valuable arms that were later given to museums in Vienna
or partially dispersed. Family numismatic collection of
the counts Normann-Ehrenfels was given to the Museum in
1942 (catalogue nr. 2-3).
Besides numismatic material other archaeological
material was being collected, frequently epigraphic, such
as stone monuments built in walls of churches and castles.
This is exemplified by Roman stone monuments that reached
the Osijek Museum in 1951 built in the wall fence of
the count Pejačević (Pejacsevich) castle in Osijek. In 1948
several Roman monuments built in the manor-house of
Prince Eugen of Savoy in Bilje near Osijek were conveyed
to the Museum.
Numismatic collections were in the course of their
development very frequently the foundations of big numismatic
cabinets making today basic scientific institutes.
These collections – cabinets were often assigned to libraries.
This was the case in Zagreb as well, since National
library was the starting collection point of the Zagreb numismatic
collection.
In general history of Osijek eminent art collectors –
museum donors certainly the most prominent place is taken
by the traveller and wholesale merchant Karlo Franjo Nuber
(1872-1935), who was fascinated by classical heritage.
It was only by his merit that the Museum in Osijek holds
now one of the most beautiful collections of national numismatic-
the collection of banalis, one of the best collections
of Dubrovnik coinage and a quite valuable Greek and
Roman coinage collection. In his library he held serious
numismatic editions that he actively read and put valuable
notes as additional evidence of his interest in numismatics.
He gave the majority of his numismatic bibliography to the
Museum.
It is important to note that Nuber donated his valuable
collections in specialized numismatic cases, cabinets with
coin deposit and inventory notes or cardboards that give
evidence of his relationship towards material and care about
the way it was going to be stored (catalogue nr. 1, 5-9,
11-13, 15, 16).
Unlike Nuber and his collection, we know less about
the Osijeker Max Zucker, who was Nuber’s great oponent,
controversial numismatist and the builder of the former
Royal Great Grammar School and Primary school in the
Lower Town in Osijek and about his collection of antique
coinage. In 1903 the Museum came into the possession of
(a part of) Zucker’s collection that was stored in standardized
cardboards with deposits and notes on the coinage
(catalogue nr. 17).
During the war in 1943 Dr Herman Weissmann, a
lawyer and eminent Osijek inhabitant gave the Museum his
family numismatic collection stored in a wooden chest and
separately antique coinage in cardboards that were inserted
in wooden boxes. Specilized chest from Weissmann’s
donation has the shape of a prismal chest of drawers (10)
made of stained and varnished oak wood. The chest has a
small movable door that opens when pulled upwards (catalogue
nr. 4).
The Collection comprises various numismatic cardboards
with coin deposits- simple, made of regular, unpainted
or multicoloured, decorated cardboards with smooth or
corrugated board, or smaller cardboard or wooden boards
for smaller coinage.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
95604
URI
Publication date:
20.5.2010.
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