#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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Events Archive

Reopening the Lazo Family Mansion

November 26, 2018

On December 2, 2018, at 12.00, was opened the permanent exhibition „Bessarabian environment - the mansion from Piatra - interconnection of historical personalities" at the Lazo Family Mansion in Piatra, a branch of the National Museum of History of Moldova. The exhibition is opened on the occasion of the completion of the interior rehabilitation works of the Lazo Family Mansion.

The mansion from Piatra, built between 1862-1865 by Ioan and Matilda Lazo, is a typical house of the mid-19th century with an architectural style close to that of the peasant houses, with the location of the chambers around the central hall. The mansion is a large building with several rooms (the original house had six rooms), an annex and a front terrace supported by eight massive round plaster pillars, with an attic located along the façade axis, also supported by two pillars of the same size. The mansion is set in the middle of a garden, facing the valley of the River Răut.

The house is valuable first of all because it has been inhabited by representatives of a noble family, and because it is itself a historical and architectural monument. The ambience of the house gathered together many Bessarabian personalities over the years. Two generations of the Lazo family spent part of their lives in this house. Today, the mansion is considered a monument of architecture, history and culture from the second half of the 19th century and is registered as a state-protected monument of national significance.

The new exhibition entitled "Bessarabian environment - the mansion from Piatra - interconnection of historical personalities", includes a living room, a dining room, a library office and a children's room. The memorial and typological pieces from the new exhibition present the material and moral ambience of the Lazo Family Mansion with several generations of this noble family, with their epoch, with all the complexities of life, emotions and facts intertwined with the history of the personalities owners of the Mansion, of living people with their visions and occupations who have been in our history and have contributed to the development of the Bessarabian society over the centuries.

Address of the Lazo Family Mansion: Piatra village, Orhei district.