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28. Slovenske NArodni Museum, Martin. La poterie, Musee national de Ja Slovaquic.

28. Pottery, Slovak National Museum.

splendid collections of ethnographical materials. For cxample, the ethnographical section of the thrce central museums—Prague (fig. 2/), Brno (fig. 22, 23) and Martin (fig. 24-29)—alone possess some 250,000 objects, and the 250 or so district and regional homeland museums in Bohemia and Morayia another 300,000. If to these figures are added the numbers in ethnographical collections in Slovakia and in those administered as national cultural property, it can be estimated that Czech and Slovak ethnographical collections comprise upwards of 700,000 objects.

Regional and district homeland museums possessing ethnographical collections of from 5,000 to 20,000 objects, in addition to their history and natural science collections, are not exccptional. Some of them, like those in Plzeń, Domażlice, Veseli nad Lużnict, Vyśkov, Klobouky (near Brno), Uherske Hradiśte, Roźnov pod Radhośtem and elsewhere, can even be considered as specialized ethnographical museums.

This balance-sheet, which is wholly favourable as regards the quantity as well as the scientific and artistic quality of ethnographical collections in Czechoslovakia, is an cncouragement to museum staffs to extend their field of activity by supplement-ing their collections and building new ones, and by seeing that fuli use is madę of them as scientific, educational and cultural aids. During the past few years, for example, profusely illustrated works have been published on Czech and Slovak folk art on the basis of museum collections, with parallel editions published in two or three of the main foreign languages, in the form of generał surveys of yarious broad aspects of folk art or of monographs on specific subjects such as folk-art tO)'s in Czechoslovakia, folk-art ccramics in Morayia and Slovakia, painted glassware, fabrics, and embroidery, hand-printed linen (,tnodrołisk), local costumes (fig. ^0), etc.

The internal activities of the museums also include scientific work and documen-tation. The objects in the collections are carefully treated in the museum workshops so as to ensure that they are madę availablc to research workers in suitable form (as in the case of fragile articles) and suitably protected against any damage which might