Maritime Museum Piran at an International Workshop at the World Museum Vienna

On 2-3 December 2024, the World Museum Vienna (Weltmuseum Wien) organized an international workshop "Provenience research with focus on collection of the Imperial Navy of Austro Hungary", dealing with research on the provenance of non-European collections brought to Slovenia by ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the last quarter of the 19th century.

 

The main emphasis was on the voyages around the world with the corvette Saida, which, apart from various commercial, diplomatic and scientific purposes also had a significant educational role. With them, a number of non-European artefacts were brought to Slovenia. At the workshop, Bogdana Marinac presented her research on the provenance of artefacts held by the Maritime Museum Piran.

 

As highlighted by Dr Bettine Zorn, one of the workshop organizers from the World Museum Vienna, the aim of the workshop was to exchange knowledge and experiences that would aid researchers from the World Museum and other participants in further research.

 

Already on Sunday, the meeting attendees were invited to examine a private collection - the Naval Archives (KMA), which was eventually presented by Thomas Zimmel at the workshop in greater detail. Among the first speakers was Harald Fieder from the Austrian State Archives Vienna, who acquainted us with the Naval Archives and the possibilities as well as methods of researching the topic in the archive. Other speakers who presented the collections and their research were, apart from representatives of the host museum, curators  from the Military History Museum Vienna, the Natural History Museum Vienna, the Institute for Contemporary History of the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies Vienna, the Ethnographic Museum Budapest, the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Culture, which is part of the National Museum Prague, the Bohemian Museum of Applied Arts in Liberec, and the Maritime Museum in Piran.

 

Bogdana Marinac from the Piran Maritime Museum acquainted us with the research on the rich collection of photographs by Second Class Commodore Anton Dolenc and the collection of Non-commissioned Officer Ivan Rupnik, Quartermaster Rupert Pivac and other Slovenian mariners who took part in the voyage around the world with the corvette Saida. The artefacts are on display at the permanent exhibition featuring Slovenian mariners in the Habsburg Monarchy Navy. Among Slovenian participants attending the workshop were also Dr Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik from the Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts Ljubljana and Dr Helena Motoh from the Koper Science and Research Centre.