Josip Nikolaj Sadnikar Collection, Kamnik
History
In over sixty years of collecting Dr Josip Nikolaj Sadnikar collected over 3000 items of historical and cultural importance, also with the help of his wife, who shared his passion for antiquities, especially of precious porcelain and crystal. He was the third honorary citizen of Kamnik (in 1937), only after a general Rudolf Maister and a poet Oton Župančič.
In 1964 the Kamnik Intermunicipal Museum purchased half of the collection. The remainder of Dr Sadnikar’s collection is now preserved in the family’s house in the old centre of Kamnik, in Šutna. Today the collection is managed by his son, Niko Sadnikar, also an amateur of Kamnik’s heritage.
There are also two others private amateur museum collection on display in Slovenia, although are no longer in the original private ownership: the Soklič Museum in Slovenj Gradec, now under the management of the Koroška Regional Museum, Slovenj Gradec, and the Leopold Kozlevčar collection in Šentvid by Stična, later donated to the Stična Cistercian Abbey.
Collections
The collection and the neoclassical house in Šutna from the beginning of the 19th century are declared as a cultural monument. The rooms are decorated with antique furniture while the walls exhibit the most interesting items of sacred art and paintings by late 19th century Slovene artists such as Maksim Gaspari, Guidon Birolla, Hinko Smrekar, Ferdo Vesel and others; antique porcelain and glass, mediaeval arms, a cave bear skeleton, carpets and Chinese and Japanese works of art are also on display. The collection contributed the basic material for an exhibition of Slovenian cities in 1931 in Ljubljana.