Close to 100 digitised art collections in Czechia now available online
The Ministry of Culture is supporting the digitization of close to one hundred historical collections in museums and heritage sites around the country. Thanks to the subsidy, unique online museum collections are now available on the eSbirky.cz website.
Digitizing a museum's collection increases access to it, aids the preservation of items, makes them more searchable and linkable and enables the public to view items that are so valuable that they are rarely put on display and the public only gets to see copies.
The Czech Ministry of Culture has so far supported close to 100 digitization projects in museums and heritage sites around the country.
Jan Holovský, Director of the Department of Museums and Galleries at the Ministry of Culture, says that in addition to making the collections accessible to people the world over, it enables art historians to search for and link up related objects at the click of a mouse and view them in great detail.
“Many objects are so rare or in such a state that they cannot be put on display for a longer period or at all. If they are digitised in this way, the authentic artefacts are shown in minute detail and not just art historians but the broad public gains access to them. People do not need to travel thousands of kilometres to see them and can study them at their convenience at home. Most of the collections are available on their own internet platforms, but the ministry is also working to create a centre of digitised cultural property on the eSbirky website, which is managed by the National Museum.”
One of the digitized projects is the collection of treasures which was hidden for centuries in the vault of the Premonstratensian monastery in Želiv and which, legend has it, was guarded by the monks buried there. The entire treasure - a total of 87 chalices, candlesticks, reliquaries, crosses and other precious artefacts are now available online in detail and from angles that would not be possible in the real world.
Matěj Šindelář, a student at the University of South Bohemia who digitized the liturgical objects in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, says that in the online documentation minute pictures and carvings are shown in great clarity and even seemingly invisible details and connections can be revealed by scholars studying them.
"For example, this beautiful chalice has depictions of saints. And we can see in great detail how beautifully made their cloaks are, details of their faces, hair and hands."
The Želiv treasure is available on zelivskypoklad.eu.
Similarly, art lovers can admire a precious 10th century bronze clasps from the Šumperk Museum or coins from the days of Empress Maria Theresa discovered in north Bohemia and now displayed in the Liberec museum.
The interest of museums and galleries in digitising their collections has increased significantly over the past two years and the digitised cultural property on the eSbirky website is expected to grow.
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