#Exhibit of the Month

German porcelain is highly prized among antique collectors for its exceptional material quality, originality, and the meticulous craftsmanship of its decorative design.
The museum's collection preserves five figurines from one of the oldest porcelain manufactories in the Thuringia region of Germany - the statuary group known as *"The Musicians"*, crafted at the Volkstedt manufactory. These pieces entered the museum's holdings in 1991, acquired from a resident of Chișinău. With undeniable historical and artistic value, they bear the distinct imprint of the Rococo style.
The Volkstedt manufactory has a long-standing tradition in producing figurines, including those depicting musicians. In 1760, Georg Heinrich Macheleid - inventor of hard-paste porcelain in Thuringia - founded a production workshop in Zitzendorf, which was relocated to Volkstedt in 1762. Macheleid led the manufactory until 1764. Over time, the factory changed ownership and management multiple times. Under the direction of Christian Nonne, it flourished between 1767 and 1797, a period marked by significant artistic development. Volkstedt began creating figurines that would later gain international recognition.
It was during this flourishing period that the museum's porcelain statuettes, titled *"The Musicians"*, were produced. They depict five “putti”: four playing musical instruments (flute, mandolin, horn, and pipe), while the fifth conducts. Each figurine is entirely handcrafted - from modeling to painting - and delicately adorned with pastel tones and gilded details, capturing the playful movement and refined artistry of each musician. The base is made of mass-colored porcelain in a rare grey-green hue. The contrast between green, white, and gold accents lends the ensemble an unusually delicate appearance. These ornamental features are characteristic of the Rococo style, which emerged in France and is closely associated with the reign of King Louis XV.

The mark applied to the figurines consists of two crossed forks, clearly rendered in underglaze blue, with slightly blurred paint - a detail that helps date their production. Because the crossed forks often resembled the crossed swords of the Meissen trademark, the Volkstedt manufactory was compelled to change its mark starting in 1787. Initially represented by a single fork, the mark briefly returned to two forks before being replaced in 1800 by the graphic symbol "R", referencing the town of Rudolstadt. Therefore, the brief period during which the two-fork mark was reinstated - and during which the museum's figurines were likely produced - is estimated to be between 1787 and 1800.

The statuettes range in height from 10 to 18 cm and are preserved in relatively good condition.

These late 18th-century German porcelain pieces, now on display, are exceptionally rare. They stand as true works of art by German craftsmen and serve as important historical testimonies to the evolution of porcelain manufacturing in Germany.

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Exhibitions

“Guardians of age-old borders”

70 years since the beginning of systematic research of medieval settlements on the Dniester

September 9, 2020 - January 4, 2021

2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of systematic archaeological research of the early medieval fortified settlements between the Răut and the Dniester. The investigations carried out in the sites of Echimăuți, Alcedar, Lucășeuca, Țareuca, Rudi - Farfuria Turcească, Poiana-Cunicea, Tătărăuca Nouă-Germănărie and others made it possible to reconstruct the historical and archaeological realities of the 9th-11th centuries AD. It was discovered that these complex strategic systems, consisting of a ditch, a rampart made of earth and wood, endowed with strong palisades, were built in the context of imminent threat from the outside and that they could be built by strong, well-cohesive political structures at the regional level.

The exhibition shows some of the discoveries in the northeast of the Prut-Dniester territory, represented by fortified round settlements built a fundamentis, "long houses", iron melting furnaces, craft workshops for making tools and weapons of iron, bone and horn or for the manufacture of silverware, burial mounds with cremation graves, hoards of tools and weapons, battle axes, hoards of silver objects containing Islamic and Byzantine coins, silver ingots, Scandinavian pendants with animalistic ornaments, including that of Gnezdovo type, iron weights in bronze foil, balance scale, miniature iron or bronze axes, amber beads, and so on. Some of these materials are presented in the basic exhibition or in the museum exhibition Treasury, others are kept in the collections of some museums in the Republic of Moldova or abroad.

The appearance, during this period, of defensive systems in the area between the rivers of Răut and Dniester, as well as in northern Bukovina, was associated with the penetration of Scandinavians into the region, who followed on the old trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, to the Balkans, to Byzantium, Constantinople or Baghdad, along the Vistula and Dniester rivers, also called "the second trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks". The fortified settlements were places of rest for merchants or intermediate military camps, which over time became prosperous military, administrative, craft and trade centers, real medieval proto-cities, to the construction of which the local Romanian population contributed. Apparently, they were destroyed by the invasion of the Turanian nomads at the end of the 11th century.

The archaeological artifacts that form the basis of the exhibition are originals and only some of them have been subjected to restoration and conservation. Several battle axes are part of Mr. Victor Borshevich's private collection. The exhibition is complemented by a model of the fortified settlement from Echimăuți, made in the 1960s, several reconstructions of tools and weapons, and various and images that illustrate the subject matter.

The exhibition, through the artifacts displayed, contributes to the increase of the educational and cultural potential of the museum activities, to the promotion of the values of national heritage in the international context.

Curator: Ion Tentiuc, PhD