Danica Pinterovi？ – the founder of Arts and crafts department and the first permanent exhibition of the department

Sa？etak The Arts and Crafts Department, which the article deals with, was founded thanks to the initiative and efforts of dr. Danica Pinterovi？, a versatile and a distinctive person, who started organising all the museum material and exhibitions in certain departments when she started her career at the National Museum in Osijek. Above all, we are talking about the permanent exhibition of furniture, which she completed with valuable items of practical and decorative objects made of ceramics and porcelain, metal and glass, with clocks and mirrors, and professionally organised all those objects. The first permanent exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Department was open on December 2, 1951. It was located on the first floor of the old city hall, where the Museum is today as well. We can imagine the first exhibition thanks to the small, but excellent publication by dr. Danica Pinterovi？, Povijest namje？taja ilustrirana primjerima Muzeja Slavonije (The History of Furniture Illustrated with Examples of the Museum of Slavonia), written in 1952. That short book with useful and valuable content was met with approval and praise in professional circles. Despite being short, the book was structured as long books of that type: it is divided into sections according to style periods and the author presents them by listing the predominant features of every style, basic types/sorts of furniture that existed in the European artistic production, and finally, lists the items displayed in the Museum in Osijek with detailed descriptions. The book was enriched by Jovan Gojkovi？’s drawings of the furniture displayed as part of the new exhibition. For that exhibition, he also prepared legends that accompany the objects, and in certain rooms, general legends explaining the main features of a style and other explanations were placed. Based on the material collected and the concept of the exhibition, based on the Furniture Collection, the theme of dr. Danica Pinterovi？’s exhibition was “Stilski razvoj namje？taja” (“The Stylistic Development of Furniture”). The complete settings of the furniture were not displayed because they did not actually exist; a lot of necessary objects were missing, together with the complete setting of the room that defines it, which hardly ever remained preserved in our troubled area because the material was sensitive and susceptible to decay (fabrics: carpets, curtains, draperies and upholstery, wall and floor coverings, and others). We see how the styles changed with time mostly in the individual furniture pieces in eight rooms (six actual rooms and two