Austria Tabak/JTI, the owner of the Austrian Tobacco Museum, commissioned Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H. as of January 2005 with the management of the former Tobacco Museum’s listed collection which until its closing in 2003 had been on exhibition at the Vienna Museumsquartier. The entire stock of approximately 7,000 tobacco historical objects and paintings are now being stored at Schönbrunn under optimum safety and conservation conditions.
Since the Tobacco Historical Collection is one of the most comprehensive and valuable of its kind in Europe, for Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H. taking on its Reserve Collection Management also meant to seek ways of keeping it available to an interested public. A solution was found in a new virtual form.
In order to present subject areas that are particularly interesting from a tobacco historical point of view, relevant objects were chosen from the Collection’s stock and attributed accordingly in order to provide a basis and a possible starting point for devising an exhibition. In future, a short description of a particular subject’s content as well as several outstanding and representative objects will be made available on the Internet. Digital photographs of these objects will be accompanied by a description and their relevant basic data (type of object, name of the artist, dating).
In addition to these small "subject related exhibitions on the Internet" which consist of only a few selected but highly significant and representative objects, there is also the option of referring to already existing concepts and putting together and implementing real exhibitions. These exhibitions can be adapted individually to the requirements and facilities of the borrower.
We also provide professional know-how covering all aspects of an exhibition (concept, selection of exhibits, presentation, catalogue, loaning transaction, etc.) which again may be employed in accordance with specific requirements.
A
series of virtual exhibitions of the Tobacco Historical Collection:
Tobacco and Eros
Nicotiana
The Cultural History of Tobacco in Europe
The Tobacco Shop
The Development History of the Tobacco Shop
The White Goddess
Precious Decorative Pipes and Meerschaum Objects
The Lascivious Nose
18th and 19th Century Snuff Culture
Tobacco at the Imperial Court
Tobacco and Porcelain
Porcelain Pipes of the 19th Century
Tobacco and War
Wars as Promoters of Tobacco Consumption
