
Osječki gradski muzej
Dr. Franjo Buntak (Zagreb, 1910–1985), an art historian and prominent museum expert, published a guide to the collections of the Osijek City Museum in 1940. The booklet contains an overview of the museum's history and the most important exhibits.
At the time of publication, Buntak was the curator (later director) of the Osijek City Museum (1937–1941). The booklet was created as a result of his work on the reorganization and systematic display of the museum. It contains a brief overview of the history of the museum, a description of individual departments and the most important collections (archaeological, historical, cultural-historical, numismatic, etc.), and directs visitors to the most important exhibits.
The work is written in a clear, professional, but accessible style, typical of museum guides of that time. In it, Buntak sought to popularize the museum's holdings and raise awareness of the cultural heritage of Slavonia. The booklet is illustrated with several black-and-white photographs and shows the state of the museum immediately before World War II.
This is one of the first systematic guides through the Osijek Museum and an important source for studying museology in Croatia before 1941. Today it is considered an antiquarian rarity — it appears very rarely on the market and is sought after by collectors of Slavonian themes and museum historians.
Franjo Buntak later became the long-time director of the Zagreb City Museum and the author of numerous professional works, especially on the history of Zagreb and museology. The 1940 guidebook testifies to his early museological work in Osijek and represents a valuable document on the cultural life of Osijek on the eve of World War II.
One copy is available





