At the same time no one will assert, that such art could satisfy the manifold requirements, of the highly developed circumstances of modern society, just as it is impossible for national ballads and tales, to make up for, or replace, the literature of the world.
Still the study of national manufactures is able to modify our plastic works, just as it has been successfully done in our music, or as in the goldsmiths’ art of Italy, which by preserving the remains of ancient shapes and forms of working, has raised this branch of modern industry.
The country populace had their art, which answered their simple wants, and was practised in their homes or by village artisans. This art was no reflexion nor cast off remnant of the art, which was cultivated in towns or manors, and had been, together with culture in general, spread about the whole world. It was a selfcreated, characteristic art, which can only by degrees be properly appreciated, when the artistic efforts of the human race are fully understood.
Of this popular art in Bohemia only a few remains of costumes, embroidery, and wood building have been preserved; Moravia and Slovenia on the contrary possess even now nearly all the characteristics of national art.
It was almost by mere accident, as Mrs. Josephine Náprstek, the chief collector and preserver of national embroidery, tells us, that this collection was begun at all.
In the year 1877 Miss M. Holub, of Horka near the town of Mladá Boleslav, brought part of an embroidered white cap, a so called Holubinka (that is a dove-shaped coif) which also from pious regard we have placed in this collection under No 1, and which, as the work of Bohemian country people, so took Mrs. Náprstek’s fancy, that she at once with great zeal began to collect other specimens of such needlework. She asked Miss Maxant, a teacher in the Seminary for training female teachers, to try, during her stay in the country, to obtain more specimens of this work, and Miss Maxant undertook the task with such eagerness that, after the first holidays in the country, she brought 12 „holubinky“ (dove-coifs) and many other embroidered articles.
By diligent correspondence with many persons in various parts of Bohemia, Mrs. Náprstek, with the help of numerous kind obliging friends, succeeded in obtaining, either by purchase or as gifts, a considerable quantity of national embroidery.
These labours and pecuniary sacrifices were soon rewarded by such pleasing results, that Mr. Alois Studnička, now the director of an artisans’ school at Jaroměř, who at that time was the manager of Náprstek’s Museum, thought it advisable to arrange an exhibition of Čechoslovenic costumes and embroidery, which exhibition, supported by Mr. and Mrs. Náprstek, was opened on St. John’s day 1880, and was a complete success.
It was there that for the first time the manifold variety and beauty of Bohemian needlework was displayed to a wider public, and there too Náprstek’s Industrial Museum owned nearly one third of all the articles exhibited.
Besides that, a circular, sent to different parts of Bohemia and Moravia, was replied to by a variety of costumes and remarkable pieces of embroidery being sent in, of which the greater number and the most valuable were either purchased or given to the Museum.
Since then, thanks to the never relaxing zeal of Mrs. Náprstek and her indefatigable efforts, the collection continued constantly to increase, and in 1887 & 1888 a large number of beautiful Slovenic embroideries were added at great cost.
During the last ten years popular embroidered work began to be collected also in other parts of Čechoslovenic countries, and many valuable and numerons collections have been made, which are not only a directive of taste for the whole range of artistic needlework, but also important ethnographic specimens of our culture.
The study of embroidery should always, as a matter of course, be connected with that of costumes, to which it chiefly belongs, together with the mode and arrangement of dwellings and national customs. In this way only can the study of their origin and importance lead to any valuable result.
Amongst us in Bohemia there are but few resources left for the encouragement of such research. Characteristic habits, customs and manner of life, national costumes and arrangement of
