The Cultural Historical Collections
The Ostrobothnian Museum’s cultural history collections include antique furniture, traditional textiles, artisanal and industrial products and an extensive selection of other items, which reflect the history and culture of Ostrobothnia from the 16th century up until the beginning of the 21st century.
Work to build a cultural historical collection began when Ostrobothnia’s Historical Museum Association was established in 1895. The goal was to create a museum that reflected the province’s unique culture. Objects donated during the early decades of the museum included e.g. items representing rural culture and the culture of the gentry, artisanal and industrial products as well as artefacts associated with an agrarian economy and the home. The collections also comprise products from glassworks, which operated in Ostrobothnia in the 19th century, artefacts produced by the region’s potteries, and items connected to traditional sources of income on the coast, such as seal hunting and shipping.
Furniture and objects collected by early benefactors of the museum, medical doctor Karl Hedman and his wife Elin Hedman, constitute a separate collection. Antique furniture and art objects from Vaasa, Ostrobothnia and wider Europe are included in the collection. The Hedman collection comprises separate sub-collections, such as the silver and ceramics collections. Most of the Hedman collection is on permanent display in the collector’s former home located in the old wing of the museum on the Hedman Floor.
The museum’s cultural historical collections also include special collections such as Ingvald Sourander’s silver collection and Mauritz Hallberg’s coin collection. The Nelin-Cronström Art Museum was donated to the museum at the end of the 1990s. The collection includes several hundred artworks and thousands of art objects, such as art glassware, ornaments, furniture and textiles. In the future, visitors to the museum’s website will be able to view the Nelin-Cronström collection in an online exhibition.