Methodology of dr. Danica Pinterović’s professional work exemplified on organisation of the clocks and watches collection in the Arts and crafts department of the Museum of Slavonia

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