Polished to high gloss

The exhibition presents tin objects form The Celje Regional Museum collections.

The majority of displayed objects encompass the period between the 18th and the 19th century, only a few of them reach back into 17th century.

Nowadays, when this craft has almost completely died out, and there are only a handful of people left, who are still familiar with both the technique and the method of production, the exhibition wishes to highlight this once important and typical middle-class craft.

Celje was a part of the pewterers guild in Graz. Pewterers were first mentioned at the beginning of the 16th century. Then, more then a hundred years pass without a mention of a pewterers workshop in the city. However, a complaint of the masters in Celje from the end of the 17th century reminds us of the presence of the »travelling Italian master craftsmen«. The town's pewterer trade reached it's peak with the arrival of the Italian Stretti family in the 1780s. The family managed to keep their workshop there until 1825. Some of the members are known to us by name: Johann Baptist Stretti, Johan Jakob and Johan Baptist jr. It is important to note that the pewterers of Celje, as well as those from other parts of Styria, were excellent artisans that supplied a large clientele. In the second half of the 18th century creamware and pewter became fierce rivals. The production of items in industrial plants of the 19th century dealt a final blow to the pewter craft.

The autrhot of the exhibition is curator Davor Mlinarič.