Personalities of African Collecting in the Czech Lands in the Times of the Habsburg Monarchy (16th century–1918)

Artefacts documenting African cultures, which are now deposited mainly in the Náprstek Museum and in the Historical Museum, both of them part of the National Museum in Prague, are silent witnesses of the history of Czech interest in Africa and its civilisations. It is the history of explorations of a remote continent by the inhabitants of a country which, historically, did not exactly take part in European conquests or explorations. Explorations of Africa and its peoples were a consequence – or rather an echo – of conquests and explorations taking place elsewhere in Europe. The interest in Africa is, therefore, an outcome of reverberations of the development in European understanding of Africans and events taking place on the African continent. Three institutions, nowadays historical, played an important role in this respect: the Bohemian Royal Office, the Patriotic Museum of Bohemia (today's National Museum in Prague) and the Czech Industrial Museum (today's Náprstek Museum).