• 1. What was hidden under the Museum
  • 2. Before Zagreb
  • 3. Finds at the Site of Discovery
  • 4. First Recorded Use of the Name of Zagreb
  • 5. The Royal Free Town on Gradec
  • 6. Conflict, Punishment, Prejudice
  • 7. Medvedgrad
  • 8. The Ottoman Threat
  • 9. The Emblems of the City
  • 10. Laška Ves and Nova Ves
  • 11. Kaptol
  • 12. The Building of the Cathedral
  • 13. The Main Portal of the Cathedral
  • 14. The Interior of the Cathedral
  • 15. The Restoration of the Cathedral by Bollé
  • 16. The Parish and the Parish Church of St. Mark at Gradec
  • 17. The Baroque Altars of St. Mark’s
  • 18. The Guilds of Gradec and Kaptol
  • 19. Master Craftsmen of Gradec and Kaptol
  • 20. The New System of Municipal Government
  • 21. Religious Orders Encourage Piety and Education
  • 22. The Poor Clares of Zagreb
  • 23. Veneration for the Blessed Virgin Mary
  • 24. Magnates at Gradec
  • 25. Parks and Walks
  • 26. Life in the Lower Town
  • 27. The Time of the Croatian National Revival
  • 28. Ban Josip Jelačić
  • 29. From the Homes of Zagreb People during the Biedermeier Period
  • 30. Civic Societies and Clubs
  • 31. The Foundations of the Modern City
  • 32. Ilica Becomes the Main Commercial Street
  • 33. From the Photographic Studio
  • 34. The Lower Town
  • 35. Theatre Life
  • 36. Public Utilities
  • 37. Life in Associations
  • 38. Sensations from the Beginning of the 20th Century
  • 39. Echoes from the Battlefield
  • 40. House and Life
  • 41. The Second World War
  • 42. In Socialist Reality
  • 43. The Zagreb School of Animated Film
  • 44. Zagreb in Independent Croatia
  • 46. The Study of Ivan pl. Zajc
  • 45. Echoes of Events in Zagreb
  • 47. August Šenoa and Zagreb
  • 48. Tilla Durieux and her Art Collection
  • 49. The Collection of Mechanical Musical Automata of Ivan Gerersdorfer
  • 50. Dr Ante Rodin''s Collection of Old Packaging
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Permanent Display 29. From the Homes of Zagreb People during the Biedermeier Period

After the crisis brought about by the Napoleonic wars, the citizenry of Zagreb began to gain a certain degree of economic security, which had its effect on the way they lived and on their homes in the first part of the 19th century.

Defined as a typically bourgeois style, Biedermeier came to full expression in the way people arranged their flats and houses, manifested in the equipment of Zagreb homes. Satisfying the formula comfortable, simple and functional, the apartments of the citizens were arranged in a way that was identical to the style of the interiors in other Central European cities.

The furniture that was made by the carpenters of Gradec and Kaptol, who were members of separate guilds, features a great simplicity of form. The local craftsmen paid great attention to the treatment and choice of veneer, which in this period had a very important role. The simple inlaid ornamentation, the borders, the palmettes and scrolls were typical motifs which, with columns, made of black stained wood with gold capitals, lightened and vivified the chests and desks that had very solid forms.

Typical interior ambiences were created. A lady’s corner equipped with a dressing table, a writing desk on which there was a writing set and a lamp with a shade for a candle with the obligatory salver for letters. A little sewing table and a table for serving tea and coffee, with services for both of these, with many small pictures, and embroidered cushions were the typical accoutrements of the intimate world of the apartment of that period. Upholstered sofas in a suite, with a round or oval table, a number of smaller tables for cards and other games, display cabinets crammed with little objects, mementos of bygone days gave the sitting rooms a nostalgic appearance.

The ambiance and the arrangement of a modest flat was described by the writer and politician Imbro Tkalac in his Memoirs from Croatia, in which he mentioned all the main types of furniture of the time:

The furnishing of a decent drawing room consists of a sofa, several armchairs and chairs covered with woolen cloth or, more rarely, silk damask, then a round table, a mirror, and, perhaps, a glass-fronted cabinet for silver. Occasionally there will be a piano... In refined houses they eat from porcelain plates with silver cutlery. There are also dishes of stoneware, and of English Wedgwood; there will also be in addition dishes of pewter, and pewter spoons.

Nada Premerl

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