Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

This exhibition was a reprise of the 1891 show in the Rotunda in Viennese Prater, which Emil Holub had begun to prepare shortly after he returned from his second trip to Africa in 1887. As the culmination of his exhibition activities, it aimed to present in a scholarly but also attractive manner the vast amount of material that Holub had collected during his several years in southern Africa.

Unlike the previous exhibitions, this one featured taxidermied animals, not just skins. To enhance their impact, Holub arranged them in a striking mise-en-scène, creating spatial dioramas that evoked the animal’s natural environment. He used the same principle in the ethnographic part of the exhibition, which became the main attraction, placed in the centre of the circular hall. Holub had models made of dwellings and entire villages of the Ila, Toka, Subia, and other southern African ethnic groups and complemented them with plaster figures of their inhabitants, made by the Austrian sculptor Johann Koloc, originally from Bohemia. The scenes included ethnographic objects presented in the context of everyday and ritual practice. 

Holub commissioned the Viennese graphic artist Gottfried Sieben to design the exhibition poster. It depicted a half-naked African warrior wielding a shield and a spear – a clearly identifiable sign that fostered the stereotypical association of indigenous Africans as savages. It was probably no coincidence that Holub chose the figure of a member of the Ila (“Mashukulumba”) ethnic group. Their attack on Holub’s party in 1886 sparked dramatic events that put an end to his expedition and, consequently, to his entire second stay in southern Africa.

In the autumn of 1891, Holub managed to secure the buildings at the Prague Exhibition Grounds, which had originally been built for the Jubilee Provincial Exhibition. At the turn of 1892, more than eighty railroad cars transported the exhibits from Vienna to Prague. The exhibition was officially opened on April 30, 1892, in the presence of the governor, Count Thun, who delivered the opening speech. The ethnographic part of the exhibition with models of villages and figures of the original inhabitants was placed in the right wing of the Industrial Palace. The central and left parts of the palace housed the exhibition of mammals and birds. In the Art Exhibition Pavilion, Holub placed the ethnographic exhibition of the Khoi people, then known as Hottentots, animal skulls, insects, his travel diaries, drawings, maps, and southern African magazines. The Retrospective Pavilion displayed amphibians, reptiles, fish, corals, molluscs, crustaceans, and marine fungi. The total number of objects on display was at least 500 more than at the Vienna premiere and exceeded 13,000.

The exhibition was accompanied by a comprehensive guide with a text by the Czech naturalist and writer Josef Kafka, who immediately compared the significance of the exhibition to the previous Jubilee Exhibition: “This exhibition, too, is nothing but a piece of Czech work – and no less meritorious – and no less fruitful and victorious than the examples of the nation’s diligence and activity that we saw here at that time. We can therefore point to it with equal pride and devote ourselves to its observation with no less affection.” [Kafka 1892, p. 4]

Holub was clearly proud of the installation because he commissioned a professional photographer to document it. At Holub’s request, Prague photographer Jan Mulač took dozens of photographs capturing the most attractive parts of the exhibition, namely the dioramic sections featuring the ethnographic artifacts and stuffed mammals and birds. The photographs were distributed in the form of cabinet cards and larger, framed pictures in albums.

Compared to the Vienna premiere, the reviews in the Czech press were much more extensive. Most of the articles gave detailed descriptions of the exhibition’s individual parts and highlighted specific exhibits. As in the earlier presentations, the San rock engravings attracted the most attention.

According to the daily press, the exhibition was partially closed on November 1, 1892. The installation in the Retrospective Exhibition Pavilion was the first to be packed. The remaining two sections (in the Palace of Industry and the Art Exhibition Pavilion) were still open every Sunday until the end of the month. Over 185,000 paying visitors came to see the show, 10,000 more than in the Prater. Yet it ended in a financial loss: the proceeds from the admission fees and the modest funding that Holub received did not cover all the costs associated with the exhibition.

Tomáš Winter

Works Cited

Kafka 1892: Josef Kafka (ed.), Průvodce africkou výstavou cestovatele dra Emila Holuba, Praha 1892

Further Reading

Martin Šámal, Emil Holub: cestovatel, etnograf, sběratel, Praha 2013, pp. 332–354 

Martin Šámal – Petra Vávrová – Martina Novozámská – Libor Jůn, Africká výstava Dr. Emila Holuba (DVD-ROM), Praha 2013

Tomáš Winter, Jihoafrické výstavy, in: idem (ed.), Emil Holub, Praha 2023, pp. 125–137 

Tomáš Winter, Od prostředí k objektu a zpět. Jak vystavovat „primitivní“ umění?, 69. Bulletin Moravské galerie v Brně / 2013, pp. 49–55

Anonymous author, Nový život na Výstavišti, Česká politika 1892, 9. 1., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 317, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Holubova výstava v Praze, Hlas národa 1892, no. 19., 19. 1., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 317, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Africká výstava dra. Holuba, Národní listy 1892, no. 31, 31. 1., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 318, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Holubova výstava v Praze, Hlas národa 1892, no. 36., 6. 2., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 318, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. Em. Holubova výstava v Praze, Hlas národa 1892, no. 99., 8. 4., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 320, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Holub-Ausstellung, Politik 1892, 17. 4., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 321, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Holubova výstava, Hlas národa 1892, 29. 4., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 321, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. Emila Holubova výstava v Praze, Hlas národa 1892, no. 112., 22. 4., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 321, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Zahájení jihoafrické výstavy dra. Holuba v Král. oboře, Národní listy 1892, no. 121, 1. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 326, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Dra. Holuba jihoafrická výstava v Král. oboře, Národní listy 1892, 3. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 328, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Zvláštní vlak do Prahy k návštěvě výstavy…, Národní listy 1892, 4. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 328, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Z výstaviště, Hlas národa 1892, no. 134, 4. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 329, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Lesnická, květinářská a ovocnářská exposice v jihoafrické výstavě dra Em. Holuba, Česká politika 1892, no. 101, 10. 4., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 331, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Die südafrikanische Ausstellung des Dr. Holub, Prager Tagblatt 1892, no. 135, 15. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 334, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Z jihoafrické výstavy dra Holuba, Národní listy 1892, 26. 5., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 336, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Z jihoafrické výstavy dra. Emila Holuba, Hlas národa 1892, no. 159, 10. 6., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 339, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Z jihoafrické výstavy dra. Holuba, Hlas národa 1892, no. 165, 15. 6., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 340, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Z jihoafrické výstavy dra. Holuba, Národní listy 1892, 19. 6., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 340, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Vlak z Jihlavy…, Národní listy 1892, 21. 6., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 341, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. E. Holuba, Národní listy 1892, 17. 7., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 345, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Dra. Holuba jihoafrická výstava…, Hlas národa 1892, 9. 10., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 348, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. Holuba, Hlas národa 1892, 23. 10., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 349, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. E. Holuba, Národní listy 1892, 23. 10., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 345, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague

Anonymous author, Jihoafrická výstava dra. E. Holuba, Hlas národa 1892, 30. 10., clipping in: Scrap book no. 5: Afrika V (Dr. Emil Holub), p. 349, collection Scrap-books, Archive of the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague