Zprávy památkové péče 2016, 76(1):33-38

Historical film negatives collection at the Náměšť nad Oslavou castle

Lukáš Gregor, Irena Tobiášková

The article describes a collection of historical negatives from late 19th and early 20th century that were catalogued, digitalized and processed in the late 2000s. Their author was an owner of the Náměšť estate and an amateur photographer, Count Jindřich Karel Haugwitz (1870-1927). The article presents the whole collection. It sorts the negatives according to material and technique into three groups: glass plate negatives 13 by 17,5 cm (the oldest part of the collection, from the 1890s), stereoscopic glass plate negatives 8,8 by 18 cm and celluloid negatives of uniform size 15 by 9 cm. Within each group the article describes their thematic variety, concentrates of the differences between the pictured and current states and points out possibilities of using the pictures for heritage preservation purposes.
A large segment of the pictures documents the exterior of the castle and its surroundings. Pictures of interiors show the representative part of the ground floor, the "piano nobile" (modernized between 1946-1948 as a summer residence Edvard Beneš, the president of Czechoslovakia), the castle library, the chapel, the arcade corridors and the passageway from the upper to the lower courtyard where, after 1904, was installed the Daun weapon collection and the rooms that were a part of the private residence of Count Jindřich Karel Haugwitz. There are also many portraits - of the author, his close relatives, his wider family and family friends. Some pictures show the estate employees, mostly foresters. The negatives also show the Náměšť town and other parts of the state - the little castle and park Schönwald near Jinošov, a pigeon shooting gallery in the game reserve across from the Náměšť castle, a hunting lodge on the Vlčí kopec, the Babylon look-out tower, the castle ruin Kraví Hora, nature scenes from the Oslava and Jihlava river valleys (including pictures ofplaces that do not exist anymore) and forest scenes.
The practical utilization of the preserved materials as of now has been a seasonal exhibition of large format photographs that were in 2012 added to the castle tour route, the use of information gathered from the pictures during the repairs done at the castle and during restoration of the castle furnishings and their use as an inspiration when creating a new tour route the "Count Haugwitz Residence tour" in 2013.

Keywords: Haugwitz family; historical negative film; Náměšť nad Oslavou castle; digitalization; 19th century, 20th century; Jindřich Karel Haugwitz; aristocrat

Published: March 1, 2016  Show citation