Vysoké Mýto Regional Museum

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Vysoké Mýto Regional Museum (in Czech Regionální muzeum ve Vysokém Mýtě) covers history of the area around the town Vysoké Mýto, Czech Republic.

[edit] History

In 1871, on direct impulse by a town councellor, collection of coins and paintings was gathered from the gifts of the local citizens and put in one room in the town hall. Initial passion soon faded out and by 1877 the activity had stopped. Six years later young architect Josef Škorpil initiated reestablishing the museum. Volunteers had been gathering antiquities from the area and exhibiting them locally and on country-wide exhibitions. In 1912 the collections were moved into a house bought by the museum.

During reorganisation in 1960 the museum was transformed to the official county museum, professionalized, expanded and its collections underwent expert processing. Later, the museum had expanded into two other historical houses.

[edit] Exhibitions and activities

The main building of the museum hosts most of the exhibitions, including archeological and artistic-industrial collection, collection of citizens portrait and sections on ethnography and history of craft and guilds.

The Prague Gate (Pražská brána), a remainder of the city fortification from the 14th century, hosts the permanent exhibition of pictures documenting changes of Vysoké Mýto since the first half of 19th century.

The Baroque areal Vraclav (cca 6 km from the town, in the village Vraclav) includes St. Nicholas' Church, a building of a spa and a hermitage. The areal hosts exhibition about the history of the community. In the church there is a collection of wooden polychromed Baroque plastics, created around 1740.

Among the available collections (80 thousand collection items totally) are:

numismatic collection,
collection of old printings,
Czech National Revival literature,
textiles, glass, ceramics,
graphics, iconographics, photography collections.

The museum also owns car "Aero 50 Dynamik", one of the seven luxurious cars produced in Vysoké Mýto during 1939-1941.

The museum participates in cultural life of the town by organizing lectures, balls and concerts. The main building is opened full year except Mondays, the two other locations from May to September.