The collections of the East Bohemia Museum in Pardubice consist of almost 700 000 items listed under almost 205 000 separate register numbers. The collections are managed by three departments of the museum – the Archeology Department, the Science Department and the History Department.
Digitalized items from the collections can be viewed at the museum’s publication portal, the Key to the Collections.
The Archeology Department manages two separate collections – an old archeological collection plus a new archeological collection (consisting of items found during archeological research and surveys).
The head curators of the archeological collections are Mgr. Tereza Jošková and PhDr. Jan Jílek. Other curators at the Archeology Department are Mgr. Miroslava Cejpová and Mgr. Tomáš Zavoral.
The History Department is the museum’s most active department in terms of acquisitions. It manages over 60 separate sub-collections covering a range of fields.
This collection documents the rural way of life and includes artefacts of traditional folk culture. Most of the items are associated with traditional agriculture and rural households, including equipment for processing agricultural products, food preparation and domestic cloth production, as well as historic clothing, furniture, parts of buildings and architectural models.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Michal Hambálek.
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This collection documents specialist trades and crafts used in small-scale manufacturing, services and trade. It consists mainly of items from craft workshops, the retail sector and other trades during the first half of the 20th century – tools, semi-finished and finished products, equipment and fittings, working clothes, goods packaging, and items used for advertising.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Michal Hambálek.
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This collection consists of various measures of length and volume (wet and dry) as well as weighing equipment (including various types of weights). The items have been acquired gradually since the museum’s foundation (1880). The majority of the collection dates from the 19th century, though there are also some items from the 20th century.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Michal Hambálek.
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Ordinary household items have always been an important part of museum collections, and the East Bohemia Museum in Pardubice is no exception. In the 1960s the museum created a specialized collection consisting of household utensils, items used for food preparation and storage, packaging (of food and household items), tools used by men and women for various manual tasks at home, and other equipment from middle-class households.
The curator of the collection is Bc. Daniela Hynková .
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The toy collection is one of the most recent collections at the museum, having been founded in 1975. It includes toys dating from the second half of the 19th century up to much more recent items. The unique feature of the collection is its exceptional variety and diversity.
The curator of the collection is Bc. Daniela Hynková.
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Clothes were among the first items acquired by the museum after its foundation in 1880. The first acquisitions focused on items of clothing worn by members of the lower classes, and the museum later began to acquire historical clothing. Until the 1960s all the items in the collection formed part of the ethnographic collection.
The curator of the collection is Bc. Daniela Hynková.
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This is one of the largest public collections of coins in the Czech Republic. Its history reaches back to the end of the 19th century, when the Pardubice Museum Association acquired around 1000 numismatic items for its collections. The collection grew rapidly, mainly thanks to donations, but mostly in an unsystematic way.
The curator of the collection is Prof. PhDr. Petr Vorel, CSc.
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The collection of weapons and militaria consists of 2553 register numbers, making it one of the largest collections of its type in the Czech Republic. The most valuable items are a set of civilian weapons (used for sports and hunting) mainly from Europe, most of which are richly ornamented.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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This is one of the museum’s smallest collections, and also the saddest. It contains just 48 items, all related to the German occupation during the Second World War, the concentration camps, and the events that hit Pardubice during the reprisals that followed the assassination of the high-ranking Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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In the 1970s and 1980s the communist authorities ordered the museum to document the “building of socialism” in the Pardubice region. One of the results is a very interesting collection of uniforms (from the police and armed forces as well as other professions) whose items are in considerable demand as loans to other museums. The collection includes a complete police uniform (including several types of truncheons) plus uniforms worn by members of the People’s Militias, the “Pioneers” official youth organization, bus drivers and railway workers. The items are currently grouped under 160 inventory numbers.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
This relatively small collection (321 inventory numbers) is closely connected with the museum’s collection of weapons and militaria. Most of the items are military medals and decorations dating from the era of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which were acquired by the museum when Czechoslovakia gained its independence after the First World War and many former soldiers had no interest in keeping the decorations they had received from the former regime.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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Visitors often overlook small-scale items, which is something of a shame – especially in the case of the museum’s badges. This collection, founded 30 years ago, comprises badges from companies, institutions and other organizations dating from the second half of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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This collection contains around 210 examples of clocks and timepieces from various historical periods. It does not trace the entire history of the development of clocks and watches, but it does include a number of exceptionally high-quality clocks of interesting design from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The metalware collection is an important part of the museum’s exhibits from the field of decorative arts. It consists of over 900 items, mainly made of pewter but also of copper, silver, brass and other alloys. The basis of the collection is formed by items acquired by the former Pardubice Museum Association as gifts and individual purchases.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The collection includes over 1300 items made from porcelain, stoneware and other special materials, made either for decorative purposes or for everyday use from the second half of the 18th century onwards.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The museum’s collection of furniture comprises around 340 items. The earliest acquisitions date back to the late 19th century, when the main focus was on furniture used by middle-class and lower-class households in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Since then the museum has acquired a number of very valuable older pieces of furniture, including a late Renaissance carved chest.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The glassware collection is the museum’s most complete collection of objets d’art. The basis for the current collection was laid in the late 1950s with around 700 items that were originally acquired by the Pardubice Museum Association. It consists mainly of 18th-century engraved or painted glass items, as well as cut, engraved and blown coloured glassware dating from the 19th century.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The museum’s collection of paintings is a set of individual acquisitions covering a wide range of topics and varying considerably in their quality. The works include religious paintings, landscapes, genre still-lifes, portraits and more.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The sculpture collection was founded in the 1880s. It currently comprises over 780 items, most of them examples of folk (or folk-inspired) religious sculptures from the 19th century. The most important items are a set of Baroque-era woodcarvings.
The curator of the collection is PhDr. Jan Ivanega, Ph.D.
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The curator of the collection is PhDr. Ladislav Nekvapil.
The collection consists of manuscripts and printed musical scores from various fields of musical activity: church music (church choirs in the region), choral associations (Pernštýn, Ludmila, Suk, People’s Opera), and musical scores formerly owned by local composers (K. Moor, V. and J. Lautner).
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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The collection consists mainly of European musical instruments, with a small number of exotic instruments. The items can be divided on the basis of the Hornbostel–Sachs system into four basic groups: aerophones, chordophones, membranophones and idiophones.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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This collection comprises around 1500 register numbers and consists of musical media from the 1920s to the 1980s – mostly gramophone records from both the Czech Republic and abroad.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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This is one of the museum’s oldest collections, dating back to the 1880s when the Pardubice Museum Association was established. It includes both older manuscripts (from the 16th to the 18th centuries) and more recent manuscripts. A large proportion of the items were formerly owned by important local figures in the Pardubice region.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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This collection – consisting mainly of written documents – celebrates important historical figures who were born in or worked in the Pardubice region.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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This is one of the museum’s largest and most important collections. The oldest poster in the collection dates from the turbulent events of 1848, and more recent items are constantly being acquired.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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Leaflets, tickets, interesting editions of newspapers, advertising materials, invitations to cultural events and demonstrations, ballot papers, death announcements, corporate stationery, menus, arrest record forms, anonymous denunciations.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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This collection of identity cards and officially issued personal documents was founded in the late 1990s as part of the larger collection of printed materials (small items). It includes various personal identity documents issued within the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, pre-war and post-war Czechoslovakia and Germany from the end of the 18th century up to the present day.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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The curator of the collection is Bc. Veronika Schiebelová .
The maps and plans in this collection date mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries, though it also contain several older items. The collection includes military and tourist maps as well as hand-drawn maps showing Allied air raids on Pardubice during the Second World War. The collection is highly diverse and varied, including maps from many different Czech regions but focusing primarily on Pardubice. The collection has 708 inventory numbers.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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The collection of postcards at the Museum of East Bohemia in Pardubice is one of the largest collections of its kind in the Czech Republic. It contains over 300 000 items from the first printed postcards in 1869 to the present day. Covering a wide variety of topics, it offers a unique insight into the development of postcards as a medium in what is now the Czech Republic.
The curator of the collection is Bc. Veronika Schiebelová .
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The collection includes a large number of wall maps, charts for teaching reading and writing, beautiful examples of handwriting by local school students, chalk slates, handwritten calculation tables, handwriting grids, pencil-cases, and school satchels.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Tetřev.
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This archive of photographs is a valuable resource for researchers. The collection dates back to the earliest days of the museum. It includes positives, slides, negatives, photograph albums and glass negatives. The most valuable part of the collection is a set of around 200 glass negatives formerly owned by the renowned Czech photographer Josef Pírka.
The curator of the collection is Bc. Veronika Schiebelová .
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The technical collection was founded in the 1990s and currently consists of nearly 650 inventory numbers. It is subdivided into ten different fields of technology, including items from the 19th century to the present day.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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The collection contains various types of models – mainly of areas and buildings, such as models of Pardubice’s housing estates, swimming pool, ice stadium, the Opatovice power plant and the Pardubice racecourse.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
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The sports collection is relatively small, with around 530 register numbers. It was founded as a separate entity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It includes sports equipment, clothing, various trophies and awards, flags and banners, and extensive printed and photographic material documenting various sports.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Zdeněk Horák.
The Science Department manages 10 separate collections focusing on natural history.
The museum’s botanical collection was founded in 1927 by the herbalist and teacher Emanuel Kalenský. However, it also includes numerous older items (dating back to the first half of the 19th century) which were purchased by the museum or donated by private herbalists. The collection contains mainly items from East Bohemia, though there are also items from other regions of the Czech Republic.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Lenka Bálková.
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Most of the items in the collection were acquired relatively recently, from 1998 onwards. The original collections (except the mollusc shells) were transferred in their entirety to the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Dolanský.
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Most of the items in the collection were acquired relatively recently, from 2003 onwards. The original collections were transferred in their entirety to the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové. Currently the collection consists mainly of rocks and minerals documenting the diverse geology of the north-eastern part of the Bohemian massif.
The curator of the collection is Ing. Jiří Šura.
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The zoological collection is one of the oldest collections belonging to the museum. Immediately after the museum’s foundation, on 30 June 1881, it purchased (for 3000 gulden) a collection of stuffed birds from the renowned taxidermist Professor Hromádka, an expert on the natural history of the Pardubice region.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Dolanský.
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This small collection (316 items) includes skeletal remains of large animals dating from the early and later Quaternary period, which were mainly found in the Pardubice region. The rarest exhibits include antlers (deer, reindeer, moose), skulls (horse, aurochs), and the tusks and teeth of mammoths.
The curator of the collection is Mgr. Jan Dolanský.
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