A few days ago I had the privilege to visit an amazing building, the Toldalagi palace, that is now home to the Folk And Folk Art Museum of Targu Mures. I spent an hour inside and I will never forget that hour. It was like entering another world, another dimension.
Let's start with some history about the building as it worth knowing how this amazing building has gone through throughout the years. Unfortunately the building was under maintenance, he front was fully covered, so I needed to select a photo from the internet.
The Toldalagi Palace
Looking at the building you may ask why is it called palace, when it's just a two story building. The answer is very simple. When this building was built, which was between 1759-1772, a building like this qualified as a palace. The blueprint of the building belongs to the French architecture called Jean Louis D'or, the interior decoration is a work of sculptors Paul Schmidt and Anton Schuchbauer and was the home of Earl László Toldalagi, President of the Royal Table.
In 1786 there was a printing house established by Kapsonczai Nyerges Ádám, which was donated to the Reformed College in 1802. In 1920 till 1930 there was a bank here, then a restoration took place in the 1960s and it gave home to the historical and ethnographic departments of the Mureş County Museum. source
What I loved the most about the building is the interior. It has an inner courtyard, paved with cobblestones, most likely the originals. At the time of my visit, they were bringing out some nice wooden pieces from the storage room, most likely to be exhibited.
The entrance is also something to admire. The door most likely is a newer one, but still very nice .
This is the part I love the most, the glass ceiling covering the inner courtyard.
There are no words to describe how much I like this building. The glass ceiling provides a lot of light.
There are stairs on both sides of the building. This is on the right side. The stairs on the left side are different and I'm going to show you when we get there.
Tickets And How To Get There
The museum is right in the city center, close to the national theater, so you can't miss it. Most of the buses pass through the city center and taxi drivers also know very well where the theater is.
The entrance fee is 12 lei for adults, which is approximately $3, very cheap if you take into consideration what you get for that money. The ticket itself is a bilingual beauty, with a nice map on the back and other useful information.
Traditional Romanian Folk Clothes And Lifestyle
The museum is hosting various thematic expositions, one of which, the first actually is the traditional Romanian folk clothes or costumes if you like and lifestyle.
These are the traditional clothes of the region, that you can still see on various festive occasions and maybe in small villages. Those clothes were manually weaves and embroidered back in the day. On the wall there are plates and carafes, handmade and hand painted, that were used on a daily bases as porcelain was rare and expensive, not for the poor. The holder on the wall is a nice wooden piece, that is also hand painted. Beneath the plates there are various religious icons, which were very popular, maybe they still are. Religion played a huge role in people's life those days.
Another beautiful hand painted wooden hanger for plates and carafes. Beneath there is a handmade cloth wish meant to protest the wall. This is a very simple one but there were others with religious messages embroidered on them, which we're going to see later.
Beneath there is a very beautiful piece of furniture that had double purpose. It was used as a bench, but also as storage space as the top can be lifted and clothes can be stored inside. Comfort was not something usual those days though, plus people were busy working all day on the fields, there was no time for sitting around.
Another linen box made of wood and hand painted. Next to it on the left there's the most important tool a woman could have those days and that was the loom. Having livestock was a way of putting food on the table and sheep were not only good for milk and meat, but the wool was used to make clothes as well as cloth and other things needed in the house, so a loom was a must.
More tools in the back, but unfortunately don't know what it is called. That's what was used to make yarn.
The clothes you see on the photo and the cloth surrounding the religious painting were all made with these tools.
Beds were usually packed with pillows, then covered with these handmade bed covers. The bed is also hand painted, which looks great actually, but let's not forget that the poor had plain wooden furniture, with no painted decoration.
Stay tuned for my next post as there's more to come. There are so many beautiful things in this museum, can't wait to show you.
