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totally eclipsing the parent institution, at that time temporarily housed in cramped cjuarters at the Prague Municipal Library.

The use of the baroque Troja Castle for the collections of modern Czech sculpture was less happy. The contrast bctween the richly painted interiors of that former country seat of the nobility and the many examples of i9th and aoth-century sculpture displayed in the galleries favoured neither the one nor the other, and the cxhibi-tion was finally closed in 1953. However, the experience acquired proved useful when the National Cultural Commission concluded its agreement with the central museums after the war for allocating certain castles and manors for special exhibitions under their auspices. The initiator of the agreement was the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague,¹ whose collections had outgrown its available space. It was this fact, plus its desire to place its large and well-developed collections at the scrvice of science, art, education, and even production, which led it to conclude the agreement with the Commission. The castles and manors selected were those of secondary importance from the standpoint of the history of art but suitablc for the installation

48. StAtn{ ZAmek, KlaStcrec nad Ohri. Musćc dc la porcclainc au chatcau d’Ćtat de KlaStcrec. Sallc dc la porcclainc de Slavkov, vers 1840.

48. Porcelain Museum, KlaStcrec State Castle. $lavkov porcelain room, about 1840.

of museum collections along scientific lines, it being stipulated also that the installa-tions should harmonize with the setting. In this instance the materiał itself, well suited by its artistic and historical naturę to the architectural style of the monumcnts, madę it easy to comply with that condition. Another was that decorativc arts museums installcd in State castles must specialize in arts having a bcaring on the local economy, with a view to promoting the development of an existing industry or the study and illustration of a past one.

The first of these special exhibitions organized by the Prague Museum of Deco-rative Arts was the Furniturc Museum in Lemberg Castle, in Northern Bohemia, in 1951 and 1952. The unusual and original style of this perfectly preserved Renais-sance chateau, with its baroque modifications, led the Museum administration to arrange the rooms so as to present a systematic picture of the development of Central European cabinet-making from the late Gothic period up to modern times. The furniture was set out in a series of grouped displays harmonizing with the stylistic arrangement of the rooms, and the unity thus achieved was further enhanced by the decorations—curtains, pictures, statuary, glassware, ceramics, pewterware, etc. (fig. 4;, 46). The museum became thus morę interesting and instructive to the yisitors and at the same time the former function of the castle as a nobleman’s residence was brought out.

The establishment in 1953 of a Porcelain Museum in Klasterec nad Ohn State Castle in the neighbourhood of the largcst Czech porcelain factory, with which the museum actively co-operates, was carried out on similar lines. The architectural effect of the beautiful Renaissance ground floor rooms with their stucco walls is

49. StAtni Zamek, Jcmniśtć. Musćc du cos-tume au chatcau d’£tat de JcmniStć. Exposition de vćtcmcnts de l’epoque rococo.

49. Costumc Museum, Jcmniśtć State Castle. Display of costumcs of the rococo period.

1. Sec also: “Temporary Exhibitions in a Museum of Industrial Arts”, Museum, voJ. IV 0950. P- 55-

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