Bach at the museum

26 janvier 2017

Today we had an unusual experience at the museum, not with regular visitors but with two musicians. Singer Elma Dekker performed together with Lourens de Man on electronic clavichord the Tobacco cantata by Johan Sebastian Bach. The famous Bach wrote this song in 1734 on the words of a humoristic poem that reads: "Each time I take my tobacco pipe, well filled with fine canister...". In the museum the performance was a test, to be repeated on another occasion for a real audience and of course with a real clavichord. We have experienced that the museum not only has a splendid collection, but also excellent acoustics.

First acquisition in 2017

20 janvier 2017

Our first buy this year is a heavy object, literally. It is a printing block consisting of a thick lead plaque, shaped and engraved, nailed on a firm wooden board. It has been used to print paper tobacco bags. This printing block is unusual in its size, over 16 cm high. It is meant for printing a large size package of finely cut Frisian ‘baay-tobacco’. The image is the famous tobacco brand of the white bear in oval framing. The plate doesn’t include the name of the shop or tobacco cutter, that would have been printed separately on the back. The white bear appears as a tobacco brand in the eighteenth century, but this printing block dates from the first half nineteenth century in Leeuwarden. This item is a welcome addition to a set of printing plates for tobacco wrappers in our museum.