The Protection of Textile Materials in the Ethnographic Museum in the First Half of the 20th Century

The focus of this paper is on Jela Novak and Tereza Paulic, museum employees who made an exceptional contribution to the preservation of the textile collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb. As textile experts, they played a key role in the process of inventorying, professional processing and protection of ethnographic material in the first decades of the Museum’s operation. By analyzing their professional activities in the field of textile protection, with special emphasis on the contribution of Tereza Paulic, my aim is to highlight the importance of their role in the preservation of the museum’s holdings and the technical and methodological challenges they encountered in museum practice.It is important to emphasize that some of the methods and means used when implementing the textile protection measures were in accordance with the standards of the time, although they are considered unacceptable today.