The research platform for digitized objects, publications and archival documents of the Volkskundemuseum Wien

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Belts (Bauchranzen): Splendor to Fasten Around the Waist

Belt (Bauchranzen) are wide, usually elaborately crafted buckle belts made of leather that are still worn today mainly in parts of Austria, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Poland. They serve both practical and representational purposes. Their production requires considerable time, materials, and labor, which in the past particularly reflected the social status of the wearer. In addition to their function as splendid leather accessories and as means of storage and transport, they often carry personal and symbolic meanings and express a sense of belonging. Their ornate decorations range from embroidery with quills, gold and leather strapes to fittings made of tin or brass studs. This type of belt is still worn today in traditional costume and marksmen’s associations or on festive occasions.

Since the museum’s founding in 1894, a wide variety of belts (Bauchranzen) have been acquired by the Volkskundemuseum Wien. Around 230 pieces are now part of the textile and clothing collection. Here—within the Online Collection Plus—50 selected examples (as of April 2026) provide insight into the diversity of places of production and use, forms, materials, techniques, and motifs.

The Imaginative World of Eleonore Grant

In 2021, the Volkskundemuseum Wien received a small collection of handmade, imaginatively illustrated booklets and little books as a donation. The images in these small-format works were created by Eleonore Grant, an aunt of the donor. Produced around 1945, the unique items were intended as personal gifts from the artist, born in 1930, to her family.

The 17 originally illustrated booklets in the collection complement the museum’s existing holdings of personally produced picture books made for private use. The donation also included an illustrated calendar and ten loose sheets with watercolour and ink drawings. In the imaginative stories and images of these carefully crafted individual works, personified flowers and insects as well as humanoid mythical creatures play a central role. With her small booklets, Eleonore Grant shared moments of joy in a period when her life was shaped by war and displacement.

Hairwork Pictures

The museum’s wide-ranging collection of objects made from human hair includes love tokens and gifts, jewellery, commemorative and memorial pictures, album pages, artistic hairwork images, devotional pieces, and votive offerings. Giving, preserving, and artistically working with human hair were deeply personal acts, expressing affection, remembrance, and devotion.

In 1981, the special exhibition Jewellery Made of Hair (Schmuck aus Haaren) presented works from the museum’s entire collection of hairwork, including many pictures created with hair embroidery and cut-and-paste techniques. During the preparation of the exhibition, the already established collection of commemorative, devotional, and memorial images, as well as artistic works featuring human hair at the Volkskundemuseum Wien (Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art), was selectively expanded through new acquisitions. As a result, the collection has grown to 66 hair pictures, representing a wide range of techniques and forms associated with this unique culture of remembrance.

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Albums

Belts (Bauchranzen): Splendor to Fasten Around the Waist

The Imaginative World of Eleonore Grant

Hairwork Pictures

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