Folklore

The collection focuses on lived traditions in Salzburg, objects used in religious and spiritual practices, domestic and everyday culture, and craft techniques. The textile collection, featuring traditional costumes, accessories, and handmade items, is complemented by images from the Graphics Collection, together forming a unique resource for research into costume and traditional dress in Salzburg. The nativity scenes – ranging from early box nativity scenes from the eighteenth century to works by artists such as Carl Storch and Luise Spannring – and the masks are further highlights of the collection.

The two teachers and folklorists Karl Adrian (1861–1949) and Sebastian Greiderer (1862–1928) compiled their own folklore department from the collections of Salzburg Museum (then known as the Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, SMCA), which opened in 1904. They collected and acted here in the spirit of the ‘Heimatschutzbewegung(en)’ (Homeland Culture Protection Movement(s)), which sought to preserve objects and traditions from a romanticised rural way of life, some of which were fabricated and reinterpreted to support ‘German national’ and ‘German ethnic’ ideology. The museum was intended to showcase Salzburg traditions and costumes as role models, promote them at events, and (re)invigorate them.

In 1924, museum curator Adrian and director Julius Leisching (1865–1933) established the Folklore Museum in the idyllic setting of the Monatsschlössl in Hellbrunn. Current exhibitions take a fresh look at this historical cultural collection, relating it to contemporary life and ongoing social and cultural change: What shapes and influences us? What do we identify with? How do we shape our lives, our environment, and our society? And which objects reflect these stories?