#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.

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Exhibitions

“Chisinau through time”

Painting exhibition by the artist Galina Vieru

October 12 – November 30, 2022

"Chisinau is my home. Here I found my love, my purpose and started a family."

Through the painting exhibition "Chisinau through time", fine artist and poet Galina Vieru, emphasizes the beauty of this wonderful city, its charm and pulse, as a sign of gratitude and admiration for it. Just as every place in the world has a story, a history, so the thread of the city of Chisinau springs from a series of legends in which the truth and the mythical, the fantastic and the reality are interwoven.

The exhibition "Chisinau through time" includes a series of works based on legends and realities, which reveal the white stone face of this city, indented and polished by time, through its people and centuries. Forgotten buildings, historical places and landscapes from our capital.

The painting collection calls for knowledge and discovery, for openness and light, for new steps that will seek in the hum of this gigantic nest its beauty and charm.

The opening of the "Chisinau through time" exhibition will take place on October 12, at 16:00, on the ground floor of the National Museum of History of Moldova, Chisinau, 31 August 1989 street, 121A.