Mortars were placed in pharmacies on various pedestals usually made of hardwood, and, more rarely, from stone. For beautifully decorated mortars, which, in addition to practical use, were the decoration of the interior of a pharmacy, wooden pedestals in the shape...
The chalice foot is made on a six-leaf plan, the foot coat and a hexagonal sleeve are decorated with a grapevine spike on a gold-plated background, with six silver medallions with engraved scenes: the Birth of Christ, the Last Supper, the Risen Christ, the Gathering of Manna, the Grape Harvest, the Harvest.
A heavy, massive cash register for counting decorated with garlands and floral motives is an extremely valuable exhibit, considering its origin. The National Cash Register company from Dayton (in Ohio State) specialised in the production of counting machines, and gained a monopoly in this field within the territory of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The sculpture was made after 1900 by the artist-sculptor Henryk Hochman, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, a disciple of Florian Cynk and Konstanty Laszczka. Hochman continued his education in the workshop of August Rodin in Paris.
A container for fragrant spices (e.g., clove, cinnamon, vanilla, myrtle), the aroma of which is ritually inhaled during the ceremony called Havdalah (in Hebrew: separation) held in Jewish houses at the end of Shabbat.
A cylindrical, capped bottle closed with a handle. This bottle is richly decorated with an artistic decorative design of plants and various other figures. The vessel was used in a practical way for storing valuable spices from overseas, but was also prized for its beauty. It was richly decorated by a master coppersmith.
This valuable product of artistic handicraft is a silver and gold-plated salt shaker – an example of Baroque goldsmithing from Augsburg – which was one of the most important European gold smithery centres.
An etrog tin in the shape of a pomegranate with three leaves, oxidised and open in the middle. The exhibit presumably belonged to rich Jews, as only they could afford such a decorated, silver container, used to carry the etrog to a synagogue on the holiday of Sukkot.
The monstrance from Korzkiew is an example of the longevity of Gothic forms and at the same time the ability to mix them with the Baroque style, which was new when the monstrance was produced. The monstrance presents a type of turret. It has a six-leaf base covered with a veil with a repoussé decoration— arma Christi (motifs symbolising the Passion of Christ) in auricular cartouches.
Church confraternities, which boasted about having a separate chapel or a side altar, completed the religious life of parishioners. The first confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, established in Niepołomice by Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki, worked efficiently for one and a half centuries, but in 1596 a church inspector found it, as he described, in a state of “devotional and interment” activity.
It is the oldest of the dated donations of Casimir the Great for Polish churches. The Roman form of the basic chalice components and some of its motifs (e.g. small rounded arch arcades) coexists here organically with raised Gothic ornamentation, setting this impressive vessel apart from other goldsmith works of the 14th century.
