The Southwestern Collections of E. St. Vráz (1900) in the Náprstek Museum

Stránky	5—33
DOI	10.37520/anpm.2026.001
Klíčová slova	E. St. Vráz, Náprstek Museum, Central Europe, American Southwest, photography, ceramics, colonial fantasies
Typ článku	Recenzovaný článek
Citace	KŘÍŽOVÁ, Markéta. The Southwestern Collections of E. St. Vráz (1900) in the Náprstek Museum. Annals of the Náprstek Museum. Praha: Národní muzeum, 2026, 47(1), 5—33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/anpm.2026.001. ISSN 0231-844X (print), 2533-5685 (online). Dostupné také z: https://www.nm.cz/periodicke-publikace/annals-of-the-naprstek-museum/47-1/the-southwestern-collections-of-e-st-vraz-1900-in-the-naprstek-museum

Annals of the Náprstek Museum | 2026/47/1

This text is dedicated to a rare collection of artefacts and photographs deposited in the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures (henceforth the Náprstek Museum). The collection was acquired in 1900 by the Czech traveller E. St. Vráz in Arizona. The purpose of the article is, first, to summarise the known facts regarding Vráz’s journey, provenance of the objects, and the circumstances under which the photographs were taken, to take into account the broader contexts of the ‘discovery’ of the American Southwest, but also of the Czech nationalism and colonial fantasies of the 19th and early 20th century. Finally, the text is intended as a starting point for discussions about curating the collections that arose of these contexts, as a first step towards dismantling the deep-embedded discourses of Czech ‘colonial innocence’.

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