Visiting The Museum of Făgăraș

Yesterday I showed you the museum in the prison tower of the Făgăraș citadel. This was not the only museum hosted by the citadel. The castle basically serves as museum now, partly exhibiting the original or recreated objects used by those who owned the castle and partly hosts other exhibitions, permanent and temporary.

There was a permanent exhibition in the castle, with traditional clothes of the region, and a temporary one with folk costumes, which I'm going to show you at the end of my post. These are important to any visitors, to understand and learn about the traditions of those periods.

This is a corner of an exhibition room, furnished and set up as the village houses used to be once. Peasants were living in small, adobe houses, mostly made of one room and another space called kitchen, but there were many living in a single room. That bed was a bit of a surprise as those curtains are not traditional, but I see the purpose. It may have been for privacy, as a whole family sleeping in one pace does not give you mush privacy, but it may have served to preserve the heat.

As the label says, the most beautiful room of the house, scene from the end of the 19th century, from the village of Drăguș.

Two pieces of furniture that could never miss from any house. However, these were not ordinary pieces, only the well off had this kind of painted furniture. The first one is from 1936, it's a bench, that served as storage space as well. You could lift the top off and store clothes or bedding. The second one is a hand painted wooden chest from 1882, a dowry chest. For those of you who are not familiar with the culture, back in those times each young lady had to have a dowry chest, full of handmade (there was no other by the way) clothes, bedding, table cloths and all one would need for a new home. Without that, they could not merry. The wealthy ladies had other belongings and properties as well. Back then marriage had nothing to do with love, it was a deal made by parents.

Here's the museum's description in a much eloquent English 😁

Here's another Saxon dowry chest, from the southern Transylvania, from 1767. I don't know about you, but I love these. Obviously I'm never going to have one as it doesn't fit in our lifestyle anymore, but I'm always happy to see one.

Women's folk costumes of three nations. The two on each end are Romanian costumes. The second from left is a Saxon costume and the next one is Hungarian.

This was a very common scene in almost every household as women were making their own yarn and using it to make fabric with it.

Not everyone was wearing those traditional clothes though. Nobles and the wealthy ones had their own clothing, the fancier the better. This is Saxon finery, made by Transylvanian workshops in the 18th - 19th century. Again, only the upper class could afford to wear such finery, as the label calls this set of jewellery.

There is no mention about the base material used, but I suppose it's copper and not gold. Again, I'm glad I didn't live back then as I don't like to wear such accessories. I prefer simplicity, but there are cultures where wearing such accessories is still a thing.

These clothing items are specific to Saxon wear. Saxon women had these ribbons on their hat and dress.

Now look at that embroidery and imagine that back then, all of those were made by hand. There were no machines to do the work, women had to learn how to do embroidery and do it themselves.

Saxon folk costume for nobles from the 18th century.

Saxon women's costume from southern Transylvania from the 19th century. This is quite simple, compared to the one's I've seen over the years.

Seems like I was wrong. The description you see in the window says that big round accessory was made of gold or gilded silver. Which means only a selected few got to wear such jewellery as not many could afford it. The west is an interesting item as well. It's leather and embroidered.

Again, I'm glad I live now and not then as I would not want to wear such things.

No wonder these noble ladies all had their lady's maids as dressing up in those clothes and wearing these jewellery was not an easy thing.

I wanted to post about another exhibition, a temporary one, but this post is getting too long, so that will be in another post.

Have you ever seen such costumes or jewellery?

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:

• Communities Explained - Newbie Guide
• Cross Posting And Reposting Explained, Using PeakD
• Hive Is Not For Me
• How To Pump Your Reputation Fast - Newbie Guide
• Tips And Tricks & Useful Hive Tools For Newbies
• More Useful Tools On Hive - Newbie Guide
• Community List And Why It Is Important To Post In The Right Community
• Witnesses And Proposals Explained - Newbie Guide
• To Stake, Or Not To Stake - Newbie Guide
• Tags And Tagging - Newbie Guide
• Newbie Expectations And Reality