Žmuidzinavičius Museum (), also known as the Devil Museum (''Velnių muziejus''), is a museum in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, dedicated to collecting and exhibiting sculptures and carvings of

devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...

s from all over the world. The museum is a part of M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. The collection was started by artist

Antanas Žmuidzinavičius Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (, 31 October 1876 – 9 August 1966) was a Lithuanian painter and art collector. Educated at the Veiveriai Teachers' Seminary, Žmuidzinavičius worked as a teacher while pursuing art education in the evenings in Warsa ...

(1876–1966), and a memorial museum was established in his house after his death. In 1966, the devil collection consisted of 260 sculptures but visitors began to leave their own devils as gifts to the museum. In 1982, a three-story extension was built to house the expanding collection and, as of 2009, the museum's holdings had grown to 3,000 items. Most of the devils are sculptures in wood, ceramic, stone, or paper. Others are masks or paintings on silk or canvas. The devils, collected from all over the world, are diverse in style. Many of the devils are art objects, for display only, but other devils have been incorporated into usable objects such as pipes and nutcrackers. Many of the items represent folk myths and others express modern political ideas. For example, one sculpture depicts

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

as devils in a

dance of death The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory from the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification of death, summoning represen ...

over a pile of human bones.

Exhibits

The first floor of the museum contains Žmuidzinavičius's collection which he acquired despite

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

law against religious artefacts. One of the devils is so small that it is viewed through a magnifying glass. On the second floor, is a huge wooden devil – given to the museum by someone who believed that the devil was causing bad luck. There are many wooden carvings of Scandinavian origin, plus donated items such as pebbles containing the devil's image. The third floor contains many devils from former Soviet territories but others come from countries around the world including Japan, Cuba, and Mexico.

References

External links

Virtual panorama inside the museum
Museums in Kaunas Lithuanian folk art Museums established in 1966 Folk art museums and galleries Art museums and galleries in Lithuania Devils {{Lithuania-museum-stub