Exhibition “New Acquisitions in the Collection of the Cesis Museum 2017-2021”

10. MAR - 29. MAY, 2022

Cesis Art and History Museum offers an exhibiton “New Acquisitions in the Collection of the Cēsis History and Art Museum”. It offers an insight to historically significant objects, documents, photographs, paintings and other evidence of the time donated to the museum during the last five years.

Cesis Art and History Museum, already in its 97th year of existence, has purposefully created significant collections of the collection’s objects for the historical memory preservation and protection of the city of Cesis and Vidzeme region. Cesis Museum currently holds more than 166,000 objects. Thanks to the residents of Cesis, the inhabitants of the county, as well as the representatives of the German-Baltic families related to Cesis living abroad, the museum collection has been supplemented with 7490 items during the last five years, obtained mainly as gifts, as well as in result of archeological research of the city and county. In this exhibition, we have exhibited only a small part of the cultural and historical evidence given to the museum in recent years.

The exhibition is symbolically introduced by a unique object that we have named – a message from the past to the future. This object is a dark green wine bottle with a written letter by the construction supervisor Jēkabs Amatnieks in 1901, who participated in the construction of the beautiful, historicist three-storey rental house of Emanuel fon Sievers, the owner of Cesis Castle, at Pils Street 7 (next to Cesis New Castle) in 1900.-1901. It is possible to read this unique letter at the exhibition. The letter written by the builders 120 years ago, was found under the floor of the 1st floor by the construction workers repairing the house.

A large set of newly acquired archeological objects is represented by 163 antiquities from the ancient cemeteries of Raskums, which reflect the life and traditions of Vidzeme Latgalians in the late Iron Age settlement of Vecpiebalga, 120 antiques from medieval burials in Cesis St.John’s Church and more than 100 antiques from the Old Town building at Pils Street 1, where a late Iron Age hearth with fragile pottery has been found. In the exhibition next to the 16th century coins, bone plates and fragments of kiln tiles, dominoes with numbers “3” and “7” from the 18th-19th centuries can be seen.

The life stories of bright and significant personalities in the history of the county are one of the values of the exhibition and the most important topics, for example the outstanding archaeologist, founder of experimental archeology in Latvia, researcher of Āraiši lake castle Dr. hist. Jānis Apals, Archive of his life work of 50-years include 580 items with documents, research, photographs and archeological objects. They weredonated to the museum by his wife, archaeologist Zigrīda Apala, and it is an invaluable contribution to the history of Latvian archeology.

Among the new acquisitions, exhibition includes family relics about the first doctor of the city of Cesis Kārlis Heinrihs Aleksandrs (Alex) Adolfi, the well-known Cesis publisher Oskars Jēpis, the Knight of the Order of the Three Stars, Rauna parish school teacher Eduards Auks, Cesis Music High School teacher, pianist Paula Krieviņa. Cēsis is unimaginable without mentioning such outstanding personalities as the writer Miervaldis Birze, the director of the Cesis Folk Theater Tatjana Šverste and the choir conductor and music teacher Visvaldis Grāvītis. Visitors of the exhibition are offered to view such outstanding materials important for understanding the cultural events of the region as the manuscript about the history of Vidzeme by Tatjana Šverste and  the diaries written by Miervaldis Birze. No less significant stories are those of the history of the Latvian Army from 1919 to 1940. They can be explored by the the life stories of three soldiers – Ignats Bartkevičs, a battery soldier from Cesis, Colonel Jānis Tomsons, a new soldier Rihards Sūniņš.

In recent years, digitally created objects have become more and more common in the museum’s collection. Among them is the digital archive of the Gauja National Park, which has been presented to the museum by Līga Eglīte. It consists of materials collected over 26 years. For the first time, Cesis Museum has included such a rich and complex material in one collection from one data carrier. At the exhibition, we will offer visitors a digital look at the materials of this important archive.

Each item in the museum’s collection has its own story and special value, which we, Cesis museologists and historians try to tell in exhibitions and expositions, as well as in publications and educational programs, thus preserving the historical memory of our city and region. We thank everyone who helped and supplemented the collection of Cesis History and Art Museum with cultural and historical evidence!

The exhibition is open from March 10 to May 29 in the seminar hall of the New Castle.