Dubrovacki muzeji - Kulturno povijesni muzej

FURNITURE COLLECTION

Head of the Collection: Pavica Vilac, Curator

The furniture collection which is housed in the Rector's Palace includes around 250 pieces of furniture dating from the latest years of the Dubrovnik Republic and the 19th century. It features objects of various styles, forms and functions and illustrates the refined taste in home decor of the patrician and upper middle classes, who followed the general fashionable trends of the time. Pieces of furniture were therefore frequently purchased in European cities and were then adapted to one's practical and aesthetic needs. They largely originate from south Italian or Venetian workshops of the 17th and 18th centuries and were made using the picturesque gold-plating techniques such as lacca veneziana or lacca povera, or the more discreet techniques of wood inlaying and encrustation, as well as various veneers.

The 19th-century collection includes works of Central European and Croatian origin. The period furniture of the Rector's Palace is not directly linked to the building whose historical furniture was either misappropriated or damaged in the course of centuries, but was collected from the old mansions, summer palaces or middle-class houses of Dubrovnik. Exhibits of particular interest include a picturesque trumeau and a closet dating from the 18th century, which were made using the Venetian technique of the so-called "poor varnish" (lacca povera), which consists of graphic motifs that are being attached to surfaces painted in pastel colours. Worth mentioning are the seats in light pastel colours of the Venetian rococo, armchairs with gilding in the style of Louis XVI, heavy gold-plated consoles of the Italian baroque, inlaid chests of drawers dating from the late 17th century and originating from Northern Italy, a Maggiolini chest of drawers with delicate marquetry from the second half of the 18th century.

Especially valuable is a an elegant cabinet lavishly decorated with gilding and glass tempera paintings, manufactured in the late 17th century by the Italian Luca Giordano workshop. A separate group consists of 6 sedan-chairs dating from the 18th century which belonged to Dubrovnik patrician families. They are of Italian origin and are decorated with wood paintings and gold-plated carvings. The largest group of exhibits consists of some two hundred pieces of 19th-century furniture manufactured using the simpler veneer technique.