Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00-18:00
Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00-18:00
EXPLORE
Paintings have power, they can replace words and open up views into completely unknown worlds.
In a joint project with Maribor Art Gallery in 2020, we are launching a series of activities dedicated to the study of the creation of the first collections of paintings and the centenary of organised artistic activity in Maribor.
The exhibition of the Maribor Regional Museum entitled INVENTORY NUMBER 1 presents paintings that came into the museum collection as a result of the work of the predecessors of the present museum - the Museum Society in Maribor, the Historical Society for Slovene Styria and the Diocesan Museum.
In the past decades we were mainly interested in the object as a work of art and as a document of a particular artistic style, environment and period. However in the context of the project INVENTORY NUMBER 1 we have also taken an interest in the donor or the collector, who for certain reason donated or acquired the object for his or her own or the museum's collection. The material is closely linked to Maribor and its inhabitants, and to the spirit of reflection and national identity at the turn of the 20th century.
We are convinced that these stories can be appealing to modern-day museum visitors.
You are kindly invited to delve into our virtual exhibition!
The first painting collections were created by the wealthy nobility in Maribor Castle and in the manor houses of Betnava, Slivnica and Viltuš. Although they were created with different aims than the collections of the Society and the Diocesan Museum, they were at least partially accessible to the public. They convey the desire to furnish noble dwellings with paintings, reflect the spirit of the period, and the artistic education, financial means, social status and values of their owners.
In the 19th century, the need for representation gave way to collecting, and the line between the primary furnishings of noble dwellings and the collections of antiquities and works of art they housed could be blurred. Noble owners often moved the furnishings of their dwellings from estate to estate.
This was also the case with the paintings of the families Khisl and Brandis, who owned Maribor Castle and Betnava Manor. The counts of Brandis also owned Slivnica Manor in the second half of the 19th century. Some of the paintings in the Maribor Regional Museum also come from the Viltuš mansion, which was built in the 17th century by the Counts of Herberstein, and in the 19th century was owned by members of the Lannoy and Carnieri noble families, as well as the industrialists Jakob Badl and Peter Magerle.
