The Collection of Paintings, Graphic Arts and Sculpture

Hans Georg Geiger: The martyrdom of St. Sebastian, 1679, oil on canvas, 120 x 80 cm, HMMF-333

The Collection contains 121 museum objects: paintings (25), graphics (cooper etchings, engravings, lithographs and aquatint, total: 19), graphic map (1, contains 2 graphics and 5 text sheets), drawings (15) and sculptures (busts, statues and reliefs, mostly plaster castings, total 55), including ensamble with components, inventoried in 122 records, a total of 128 physical objects.

Most of it was found at the Department of History of Medical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sciences in Gundulićeva 24 / III in Zagreb, and was assigned for management to the Museum. The graphic map Metamorfoze srca (Metamorphosis of the Heart) is a gift from the author Matko Trebotić from 2017, Portrait of Hrvoje Tartalja is a gift from the Gojmerac family from 2017, and the drawings of Otto Antonini were donated by Mario Antonini in 2018.

Art objects assembled in this Collection are related to medicine and pharmacy in various ways. The Collection can be divided in several groups by topics: portraits of physicists and pharmacists; depictions of patron saints; allegorical and symbolic representations related to medicine and pharmacy; representations of buildings related to the history of pharmacy; interior depictions of pharmacies, alchemical laboratories, hospitals and doctors’ offices; decorative sculptures from old pharmacies; coat-of-arms of old pharmacies; caricatures relating to persons and subjects in the field of medicine and pharmacy; advertising drawings.

The objects from this Collection originated in the period from the 17th to the 20th century. The authors that stand out are: Hans Georg Geiger, Branko Šenoa, Nasta Rojc, Mirko Uzorinac, Joso Bužan, Menci Clement Crnčić, Milivoj Uzelac, Otto Antonini and Ksenija Kantoci. Certainly worth mentioning is pharmacist and amateur painter Hinko Brodjovin, author of a series of eight portraits of Croatian pharmacists in oil on canvas, including self-portrait, which have been preserved in the collection.

The oldest painting in the Collection The martyrdom of St. Sebastian, painted by Hans Georg Geiger (Master HGG) in 1679, and in the context of medical history, is a good example of depiction of the patron saint of the plague. The portrait of a pharmacist Hinko Brodjovin made in oil on canvas has a signature from Milivoj Uzelac; this work of a prominent Croatian painter of the modern era has so far not been known to the expert public. Similarly, the drawings by Menci Clement Crnčić with medical themes have not been exhibited nor published so far (This Collection holds 4 drawings). Among the sculptures, the most valuable is the bronze bust of Dr. Vladimir Ćepulić, created by the sculptor Ksenija Kantoci in 1974. Majority of the Collection consists of plaster castings (sculptures and reliefs) that had a decorative function in the ambience of old pharmacies, among which a group of portraits of the owners of Kaptol’s pharmacy “K sv. Mariji” in Zagreb (work by sculptor Rudolf Spiegler) and four allegorical figures by Alexander Tondeur stand out.

The Collection also contains plaster castings of stone monuments related to the history of medicine, which were made for exhibition in the Museum of Health History (Croatian medical association, 1944).