#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

“My ancient silverware, so artfully crafted...”

June 29, 2021 - April 30, 2022

The exhibition entitled "My ancient silverware, so artfully crafted" is based on one of the diverse and extremely valuable collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova, that of secular and ecclesiastical jewelry.

Exceptional preservation, functional palette and originality were the selection criteria for more than 500 objects that make up the exhibition.

Fulfilling multiple utilitarian and aesthetic functions in the daily life of the 18th-20th centuries, the selected pieces demonstrate typological diversity, an amalgam of making techniques and decorative compositions, testifying to the predilection of the local elite and the Church for beauty, elegance and refinement.

The exhibition is complemented by enlarged images of some of the exhibits and reproductions of signs on the objects: marks of workshops, marks of craftsmen and metal fineness.

The typological range of the presented silverware includes items of secular and religious purposes: fruit vases, cups, glasses, sugar bowls, candy bowls, candelabra, cutlery, tea and coffee sets, salt cellars, spice sets, small handbags, snuff boxes and cigarette cases, icon cases, chalices, pectoral crosses, censers, candlesticks, and so on; all these are consumer goods, mass-produced products, but they illustrate the lifestyle and creative trends of that era.

The exhibition circuit suggests the universal arrangement of the space for the items on display, with an emphasis on the objects from Western European, Russian, Ottoman Empire workshops, but also from some Asian countries.

Of greatest interest are local products, for example, the Gospel, published in Chisinau in 1855, covered with silver plates and with three clasps, on which there is a metal fineness mark, a stamp of an assayer and a mark of a jewelry workshop from Orhei, which operated in the second half of the 19th century.

The historical value of some of the exhibits is enhanced by their production by renowned jewelry centers such as Fabergé, Hlebnikov, Sazicov in Russia, Elkington in England, Christofle in France or Norblin and Fraget in Poland.

Among these exhibits there is a 19th century silver inkwell decorated with pearls and malachite, which was made by the famous Russian House of Fabergé. Interesting is a 19th century spirit kettle made of silver-plated alpaсca, a product of the Christofle company, which at that time was the most famous in France.

A touch of splendor is given to the exhibition by silver handbags made using filigree technique, decorated with weaving of silver threads, and snuff boxes decorated with stylized floral and plant motifs made using openwork filigree technique.

Remarkable are the items that, in addition to their intrinsic and artistic value, also have a memorial value. In this category stand out the candlestick that belonged to the family of the Bessarabian writer Constantin Stamati, the monograms of the mayor of Chisinau Carol Schmidt, the silver-plated alpacca fruit vase of Eugenia Crușevan, the first woman lawyer from Bessarabia, a legal adviser of the Diocesan Council of the Archdiocese of Chisinau and Khotin.

The exhibition is complemented by enlarged images of some of the exhibits and reproductions of signs on the objects: marks of workshops, marks of craftsmen and metal fineness.

The exhibition invites visitors to enjoy technical excellence, and especially the joy of creativity.