SACHEN, ARTEFAKTE, MUSEUMSDINGE

Appearance and Reality

Considerations relating to the Toy Collectionof the Austrian Folklore Museum

In the 1970's Salzburger Residenzverlag, in cooperation with The AustrianMuseum of Folk Life and Folk Art in Vienna, published a series of books entitled,, Evidence of old Folk Art". In the 8 volumes of this series, each laid out in a standardformat, a group of objects from the museum was illustrated by attractive pictures andaccompanied by explanatory texts, relating to the respective groups: verre églomisépictures, votive pictures, guild signs, evidence of folk music, traditional religiousness,gifts of love and rustic furniture. The volume about toys is different from the others.It was compiled by Volker Kutschera from the Folk- Toy Collection, with which theCarolino Augusteum Museum in Salzburg had built up its Toy Museum. In this casethe publisher bowed to the provinicial institution, for it would have been easy for theAustrian Folklore Museum to illustrate this volume with its own material, too. In otherwords, all the examples taken from the Folk- Toy Collection could have been providedby similar ones from our museum.

This just serves to draw attention to the fact that the Austrian Museum of FolkLife and Folk Art owns a collection of toys, which is small but quite representative.There are 330 dolls. The collection ranges from simple„ rag dolls" through variousother dolls, wooden jointed dolls, so- called„ Duch dolls", to the classics of industrialdoll manufacture of the late 19th and the 20th century. A baroque costumed doll witha wax head from the first half of the 18th century deserves a special mention. It mustbe admitted that the large increase in the number of dolls resulted from the legacy ofa kindergarten teacher in 1980, who had taken up collecting dolls during her retire-ment. 220 dolls originate from her, of which half are traditional costumed dolls thatreally belong to the souvenir genre. However, various dolls dressed in traditionalcostumes can be found in the old stock of the museum. Their tailor- made designs putthem closer to the style of baroque costume dolls. Of course the museum also has thecorresponding doll's accessories: various doll's clothes, crockery and furniture. In thiscontext the collection of little altars and miniature liturgical utensils comes to mind,which represents a" male" counterpart to doll's crockery.

There is also a fine little group of doll's kitchens and parlours. In particular thebaroque kitchen with its prestigious tin dishes ought to be mentioned. It dates from1756 and came to Vienna via Prague. It could well have been produced in Nürnberg.

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