Ethnography

The ethnography sub-collection (signature Eg, 4154 items as of 12/2022) is, due to its composition, the most diverse sub-collection of the municipal museum. It was created by merging of several separate units during the reorganisation of the collection at the end of the 1960s (products, tools, instruments, guilds, the town, textiles, ceramics, furniture). The largest part of the collection consists of the museum’s historical collections and also partly the Hruška collection. At the end of the 1960s, when the museum was profiled as an ethnographic museum for the Upper Pojizeří region, the sub-collection was supplemented with painted furniture, tools, ceramics and tin. The items were redistributed from the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou and from the closed town museums in Smržovka and Chrastava. Painted folk furniture was transferred to the museum by the Cultural Department of the National Committee in Jablonec nad Nisou from organised collections.

The most valuable part of the ethnographic sub-collection is the collection of objects related to the activities of guilds and trade associations. These were the items behind the initial idea of founding a museum in Železný Brod. They include guild banners, seals, guild chests and tin tankards. Other major categories of the sub-collection include folk nativity scenes, folk sculptures, wooden gingerbread moulds, pottery and porcelain, everyday objects, tools and instruments and school items