Permanent exhibition “Artistic and Household Casting of Transcarpathia in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries”: 80 original exhibits are presented, demonstrating not only the high level of craftsmanship of the region’s foundries of that period, but also the important role of iron foundry production and art in the life of the region.
In terms of the level of development of artistic casting, Transcarpathia occupied a leading place in the entire Danube basin. Thanks to sculptors and fashion designers, in particular the well-known Valentin Villaszek and Ondrasz Schossel, whose highly artistic products are presented in the exhibition (candlesticks, figurines, decorative openwork plates, fragments of tombstones), the good fame of iron foundry spread far beyond the borders of the region.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, iron-working factories appeared in villages in Transcarpathia that worked on local ore. But the greatest fame for Transcarpathian artistic and decorative-applied art was brought by the Shelestovsky and Frideshovsky (1807) iron foundries. These enterprises, along with household items and tools, also produced the first artistic casting products – iron and cast-iron bowls decorated with openwork relief ornamentation. 9 original bowls, cast at the Dovzhansky, Kobyletsko-Polyansky and Frideshivskyi factories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are on display at the exhibition.
