K problematice zpracování nejstarších muzejních sbírek: Na příkladu sbírky Otokara Feistmantla– zakladatele indické sbírky

Abstract

In processing the oldest museum collections and their origins, we come up against wider issues of acquisition sources and the usability of the documentation that has been preserved. The history of the Náprstek Museum‘s acquisitions stretches back to the times of the museum‘s founder, Vojta Náprstek (1826–1894), who, with his wife Josefa (1838–1907) began to put together the collections of the travellers and collectors in his group of friends. He also initiated their collections to a large degree. The museum‘s existing documentation, both the oldest, kept by Josefa Náprstková herself, and the subsequent documentation, has tried to cover all the museum‘s collections, but in the search for connections between an object and its originator we often come up against a number of obstacles. This contribution examines these difficulties, in connection with the existing documentation and acquisition sources. A typical collection in this respect is that of Otakar Feistmantel (1848–1891), a geologist and paleontologist who spent eight years in India (1875–1883). The collection forms the basis of the Náprstek Museum‘s Indian collection and is being processed under the National Museum‘s ”Figures of Czech Science and Culture“ academic research project.