#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

"Chisinau: an unknown history"

An exhibition dedicated to the National Day of Culture

January 12, 2023 – January 31, 2024

The exhibition "Chisinau: an unknown history", conceived and organized by the National Museum of History of Moldova, brings together an important number of documentary materials that illustrate the historical past of Chisinau. The absolute majority of these materials are part of the collections of the NMHM and constitute a true historical-cultural treasure that allows the objective reconstruction of the city's past. Brought to light as a result of archaeological research in the last decades, they highlight unknown aspects of the history, culture, demography, social, economic and political relations of Chisinau from all times, starting with prehistoric times, passing through the ancient and medieval periods and reaching the premodern period.

Even if the oldest written documentary mention, which has been preserved, about Chisinau is from the 15th century (year 1436), the research carried out in several archaeological sites in various areas of the city (Valea Morilor, Măzărache Church, Armenian Church, Piața Veche and others) have conclusively demonstrated that the locality has a much older and richer history than previously thought. Thus, according to the latest archaeological research, the oldest known human settlements in the borders of Chisinau are considered to be those in the Valea Morilor area, where settlements dated to the Paleolithic era (about 20 thousand years BC) were discovered, in the Eneolithic era - the Cucuteni-Tripoli culture (4,000-2,600 BC), in the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) and the Early Iron Age (1st millennium BC). Also, traces of human habitation from the late Roman period (3rd-4th centuries) and from the early Middle Ages (8th-12th centuries) were attested within the boundaries of Chisinau municipality (Bâc river meadow, Malina Mică, Valea Morilor s.a.). At the same time, according to some data, there would have been a settlement on the site of the current Chisinau from the period of Tatar-Mongol domination within the Golden Horde (13th-14th centuries), i.e. from the period immediately preceding the first known written documentary mention of the settlement.

The exhibition approach is completed with documentary attestations about Chisinau, which can be found in princely books, gramotes, urics or christoaves that present the locality as a fair or property of some monasteries, with the mention of the owners and builders of churches who contributed to the growth of the city on Bâc river. Visitors can follow the economic development, the evolution of the city's internal and external trade, admiring monetary hoards and coins discovered in isolation, but also work tools, beautifully decorated ceramic vessels. They display the tastes and aspirations for beauty of Chisinau residents, demonstrate the wide range of craft and artistic occupations of the local population over the centuries.

The exhibition displays a beautiful and rich collection of ceramic and earthenware vessels, as well as unusual glass containers with a varied range of shapes and sizes, discovered in the immediate vicinity of the Armenian Church. The peculiarities of the material from which the vessels were made demonstrate the craftsmanship of the local craftsmen, whose works are in no way inferior to similar pieces from other centers of the period.

The purpose of the exhibition is to bring to the public's knowledge the archaeological materials and written sources that reflect new aspects of the history of Chisinau from ancient times to the beginning of the 19th century. The objects presented in the exhibition are authentic, original pieces, some of them being restored in the NMHM laboratory. The originality of the exhibition lies in the fact that most of the presented pieces are exhibited for the first time, only some of them being included in the scientific circuit through publication.