#Exhibit of the Month

The main parts of the camera include the body, bellows, lens, and viewfinder system. The body consists of two lacquered walnut wood frames, joined by a folding black textile bellows that allows the necessary extension for focusing. On the front panel is the Agfa anastigmat lens, mounted in a Compur-type shutter produced by F. Deckel in Munich. It features a foldable "brilliant" viewfinder for both portrait and landscape orientation. It uses glass photographic plates coated with a photographic emulsion, mounted in walnut wood holders, with a frame size of 9x12 cm.
The walnut wood model, considered the flagship "Agfa Isolar Luxus," was designed by the A.H. Rietzschel factory in Munich, acquired by AGFA in 1925, which continued producing this type of camera under its own name until the late 1920s.
The piece was restored by Mihail Culașco, Restoration Department of NMHM.
Brief History of the Camera
The history of the camera spans 200 years, evolving from the camera obscura to today's digital devices. Key milestones include: the first permanent photograph in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, using a wooden box and a plate coated with bitumen of Judea; the invention of the first photographic process - daguerreotype - in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, marking the official birth of photography; the invention of calotype, based on the negative/positive principle, by British physicist and chemist Fox Talbot; the invention of wet collodion plates by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer and dry glass plates by Richard Leach Maddox and John Huds Bennet; the introduction of flexible roll film and the launch of the first Kodak camera by American inventor George Eastman; the release of the first 35 mm film camera by German company "Leica"; the launch of the first instant camera "Polaroid," invented by American Edwin Land. Finally, starting in 1975, this path led to the digital photography revolution. Each successive step made cameras smaller and faster, significantly improving image quality.
The first photographic studio in Chișinău was opened in 1854 by Eduard Glewski, and before World War I, there were already about 100 photography studios in Bessarabia.
The collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova includes over 30 cameras, made in Austria, Germany, France, USSR, Japan, and China, dating from the late 19th century to the 2000s. Among them are folding bellows cameras, BOX-type cameras, single-lens reflex (SLR) and twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, as well as digital (DSLR) cameras.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“ANCIENT JEWELRY. The treasures of the National Museum of History of Moldova”

Virtual exhibition

The National Museum of History of Moldova, in partnership with the Arbor Institute for Culture, invites you to discover or rediscover the exhibition "ANCIENT JEWELRY. The Treasures of the National Museum of History of Moldova", the new virtual exhibition hosted on Theopen-art.com, the first platform for art exhibitions in virtual reality in the Republic of Moldova and Romania.

The 24 pieces of jewelry presented in this virtual exhibition belong to the period between the 5th millennium BC and the 17th century AD, although all come from archaeological research of the sites between the Prut and the Dniester, their origin is associated with the communities which lived between the Balkans and the Carpathians and up to the Caucasus and had trade relations with the population of the Northern Black Sea region. The objects selected for this exhibition are rare, exceptional artifacts, made by our predecessors in metal and precious stones; they are of great cultural, historical and artistic value.

These impressive museum pieces, which can be admired in real at the permanent exhibition "Treasures of the Past" of the National Museum of History of Moldova, were found by Moldavian archaeologists during the period from the 1960s to 2015, if we refer to the latest find that is part of this collection presented in virtual reality. Although some of the discoveries were made by teams, we still want to mention a few names of archaeologists who brought to light and researched these valuable adornments: G. Fedorov, G. Chebotarenko, T. Shcherbakova, N. Chetraru, V. Vornic, V. Bubulici, and S. Popovici.

Made of gold or silver, adorned with precious stones or without, jewelry has always symbolized the wealth, influence, and sometimes magical power of its owners.

The National Museum of History of Moldova (NMHM) is one of the most important museum institutions in the Republic of Moldova, both in terms of its collections and its scientific prestige. Founded in 1983, the museum keeps 348,619 heritage items, a varied typology of which reflects the history of Moldova over the centuries, from prehistoric eras to the present, showing the human habitat, facts, events, outstanding personalities. Since its establishment until now, NMHM has organized over 650 temporary exhibitions in the country and abroad, focusing on its own collections, as well as on cooperation with other cultural and research institutions.

In recent years, the archaeological heritage of the Republic of Moldova has been highlighted in important international exhibitions organized in partnership with European and overseas museums, such as the exhibition "Cucuteni-Trypillia, Una Grande Civilta dell 'Antica Europa" at the Vatican, the exhibition "The Lost World of Old Europe. The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC" held in New York (USA), Oxford (UK), and Athens (Greece), "KRIEG - Eine Archaeologishe Spurensuche" in Halle (Germany), and "Visigoths. Rois de Toulouse" in Toulouse (France). In Romania, the NMHM heritage was part of important thematic exhibitions held in Bucharest, Iași, Suceava, Brăila, Vaslui, and Alba Iulia.

The Arbor Institute for Culture is a subsidiary of the Arbor Association for Culture and Arts in Romania, founded by cultural manager Victoria Nagy Vajda, whose mission is to promote the high artistic values of the Republic of Moldova and to support cultural mobility within the Romanian cultural space and abroad. The activity program of the association provides for the implementation of joint cultural projects with state cultural institutions, in addition to the extensive activities that it carries out in partnership with the independent artistic field. "ANCIENT JEWELRY. The Treasures of the National Museum of History of Moldova" is the second exhibition realized by the Arbor in partnership with a museum from the Republic of Moldova. The first VR exhibition, "Tribute to the Romanian Language: Bessarabian writers in the work of artist Valentina Rusu Ciobanu" was organized in partnership with the Mihail Kogălniceanu National Museum of Literature in the Republic of Moldova, under the curatorship of Maria Șleahtițchi and Victoria Nagy Vajda.

The VR gallery on the Theopen-art.com platform has an area of 300 square meters, distributed in 5 exhibition areas, where large or smaller exhibitions of painting, sculpture, photography, and multimedia can be held. The creation of the Theopen-art.com platform was supported by the Swiss Cooperation Office in the Republic of Moldova and by the non-governmental organizations Arbor Institute for Culture (Republic of Moldova) and the Arbor Association for Culture and Arts (Romania) through Victoria Nagy Vajda.

Virtual exhibitions can only be visited on a desktop or laptop computer with an updated web browser. VR exhibitions are not available from mobile phones.
Instructions: Use the arrow keys and the mouse/trackpad to navigate in the VR exhibition. To exit, press the ESC key twice.

Organizers: National Museum of History of Moldova, Arbor Institute for Culture
Curators: Mariana Vasilache, deputy director; Victoria Nagy Vajda, cultural manager
Photographers: Iurie Foca, Mihail Băț, Denis Topal
The photographs are taken from the catalog "Piese de giuvaiergerie antică din colecțiile Muzeului Național de Istorie a Moldovei" ("Pieces of ancient jewelry from the collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova") by Ana Niculiță, 2018; editors: Eugen Sava, Aurel Zanoci.
Link: https://www.theopen-art.com
VR: Augmented Space Agency - virtual frontier explorers, architects of augmented spaces and designers of new digitally mediated experiences.