„County“ House

The exposition From the History And Culture of Privileged Trenčín Town and Quondam Trenčín County is installed on the first storey of the capital Trenčín Museum´s edifice (so-called County House). The exposition is specialized in homeland science and contains a nature-scientific, historical, art-historical, archeologic and ethnologic part. Our intention is not only to present rich history and culture of Trenčín region and the city itself, but we would also like to integrate the rooms of Museum in the culture and art life of the city.

That is why we have decided to polyfunctionally utilize the greatest and most representative room of the Museum (Congregation Hall) by placing the exhibits of art and Trenčín´s history in there. We have created a sufficiently large place in the middle of the room in order to organize different cultural performances or musical undertakings, there.

As for the exhibits of art, a visitor will surely be interested in the portraits of former Trenčín´s countymen and subcountymen, mostly painted in their life size. Many of them were painted by excellent painters of their era, as for example M. Barabás, an official portraitist of the supreme Austria-Hungarian nobility, as well as the court and county officers. A representative portrait of Matúš Čák (from Spiš painter Teodor Boemm) certainly belongs to those first-rate portraits of this powerful magnate. The Art Craft is, for instance, represented by a slight but very nice collection of historical clock (the oldest clock of so-called lantern type is Baroque and descends from 17th century). Bipartite tall vases, made of pink glass and with a portrait decoration engraved, originate from now not existing glassworks in Uhrovec (they originally were produced for a regional exhibition that took place in 1885 in Budapest).

As the next exhibits we can yet mention of a Baroque majolica flowerpot from the Illeshazy manor house in Dubnica; Hutterite ceramics, tinny plates, fans or engraved pipes made of sea foam. Sizable attention is devoted to memorabilies from the inheritance of the pope Lev XIII (1878 to 1903), who was a great ecclesiastical reformer. There as well can be seen exuberantly adorned shoes, a little collar and a silken pileolus that the beatific pope Pius X donated to the Trenčín Museal company.

The opening (nature-scientific) part of the exposition is dedicated to the history of the Nature-Scientific Union of Trenčín County that was founded in 1877. The exposition is also devoted to the doctor Karol Brančík, the founder and first supervisor of Trenčín Museum. This section includes the authentical articles and things of natural character from Brančík´s abundant collection. Besides it includes more than 700 exemplars of butterflies and another species of insect; written and photographic documentation, original drawings of insect and landscape motives from Brančík´s itinerancies.

In the archeologic part a visitor gains a substantial view about many finds and archeologic localities of Trenčín region from the Primeval Age to the Early Middle Ages. One can see a stone instrument of primeval man, the crocks, the urns, some bronze and copper weapons, instruments and jewels, some manufactures of the Laten Era, Roman discoveries, the coins, a grave equipment, Slavonic weapons and the spurs of Great Moravian riders.

In the last room, there is installed an ethnologic part of the exposition. Not large but according to the type a characteristic set of national costumes represents a typical costume of Trenčín surroundings. The complex of folk profit and artistic ceramics documents characteristic attributes of Trenčín pottery as a regional artistic phenomenon. A significant part is as well a rich glass-paintings collection of high level and the set of folk wooden sacral plastics, created first of all by favourite themes of God´s Mother. Its part are also typical pieties and a rare, several times published corpus of Jesus Christ being crucified. The collection is enriched by the two figural beehives in bigger sizes.