Danica Pinterović – the founder of Arts and crafts department and the first permanent exhibition of the department

The Arts and Crafts Department, which the article deals with, was founded thanks to the initiative and efforts of dr. Danica Pinterović, a versatile and a distinctive person, who started organising all the museum material and exhibitions in certain departments when she started her career at the National Museum in Osijek. Above all, we are talking about the permanent exhibition of furniture, which she completed with valuable items of practical and decorative objects made of ceramics and porcelain, metal and glass, with clocks and mirrors, and professionally organised all those objects. The first permanent exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Department was open on December 2, 1951. It was located on the first floor of the old city hall, where the Museum is today as well. We can imagine the first exhibition thanks to the small, but excellent publication by dr. Danica Pinterović, Povijest namještaja ilustrirana primjerima Muzeja Slavonije (The History of Furniture Illustrated with Examples of the Museum of Slavonia), written in 1952. That short book with useful and valuable content was met with approval and praise in professional circles. Despite being short, the book was structured as long books of that type: it is divided into sections according to style periods and the author presents them by listing the predominant features of every style, basic types/sorts of furniture that existed in the European artistic production, and finally, lists the items displayed in the Museum in Osijek with detailed descriptions. The book was enriched by Jovan Gojković’s drawings of the furniture displayed as part of the new exhibition. For that exhibition, he also prepared legends that accompany the objects, and in certain rooms, general legends explaining the main features of a style and other explanations were placed. Based on the material collected and the concept of the exhibition, based on the Furniture Collection, the theme of dr. Danica Pinterović’s exhibition was “Stilski razvoj namještaja” (“The Stylistic Development of Furniture”). The complete settings of the furniture were not displayed because they did not actually exist; a lot of necessary objects were missing, together with the complete setting of the room that defines it, which hardly ever remained preserved in our troubled area because the material was sensitive and susceptible to decay (fabrics: carpets, curtains, draperies and upholstery, wall and floor coverings, and others). We see how the styles changed with time mostly in the individual furniture pieces in eight rooms (six actual rooms and two hallways surrounding the atrium on the first floor), on our furniture from late Renaissance, through Baroque, Rococo, Classicism, Biedermeier, Second Rococo, to historical styles. Furniture pieces with more prominent features of a certain historical and stylistic period were displayed, complemented with different objects of applied arts, the accompanying material that is sporadically displayed in that exhibition: mirrors, clocks, furnace screens, as well as other decorative and practical objects: tin plates and jugs (Germany, 16th – 18th century), stoneware (Persia, 16th – 17th century), faience (The Netherlands, Italy, 16th – 18th century), Chinese and Japanese porcelain (18th – 19th century), German and Middle Europe porcelain (18th – 19th century). Glass can be observed in objects donated by a married couple, Irma and Ivan Govorković, mostly from Middle European provenance from the 19th and 20th century, displayed in the original display cabinet in the hallway, which was also a gift. The exhibition in enriched with paintings, portraits of historical figures, mostly Slavonian nobles, which illustrate the ambiance and clothes, i.e. costumes from a certain period, and are not as significant for their artistic value. The setting of the display area was a bit different than it is today: the middle part of both hallways covered with wooden planks was on the same level as the stone floor of the hallway (the marble platforms were laid later). All the rooms had doors, which took up a lot of useful space (today the doors are taken down and the entrances are arched). For a better appreciation of the contribution, role, and significance of dr. Danica Pinterović for the foundation of Arts and Crafts Department, as well as the versatility and complexity of her work in the Museum of Slavonia, the Work Diaries, regularly written by dr. Danica Pinterović herself (from the beginning of 1947 until the middle of 1974) are of exceptional value. She wrote about numerous tasks that she completed with her associates, as well as about the important and useful information about the people she cooperated with, about significant and interesting objects, current events etc. In dr. Danica Pinterović’s correspondence, we witness the interest of her colleagues for the new exhibition of furniture, as well as for the gallery, followed by salutations and wishes for the doctor and everyone at the Museum, giving part of the credit for this success to them