The Museum of Bohemian Forest in Kašperské Hory

There are three floors full of Gothic Madonnas, Baroque sculptures, nativity scenes, glass paintings and other folk arts, and a large number of taxidermized animals. The glass exhibition here focuses on glassmaking in Bohemian Forest. You can see a set of glass from Klášterský Mlýn, products of the Meyr company and its successors or the production of the Annín glassworks.

There are also exhibits related to gold mining and the life of the inhabitants of the old Bohemian Forest. Among the most valuable are a set of late Gothic sculptures from the turn of the 16th century and a collection of Bohemian Forest glass. There are paintings and drawings on the theme of Bohemian Forest by Otakar Nejedlý, Vincenc Beneš, Alois Moravec, Josef Váchal, Josef Krejsa and others.

In the museum you can see decorated death boards. In the past, they used to stand by chapels and crosses, near farmhouses, but also lonely on the edges of forests and crossroads. The harsh Bohemian Forest winters and the great distance from cemeteries made it impossible to carry out the burial. In winter, the deceased, wrapped in linen, was therefore placed on a mortuary plank in a cold chamber or shed, where they lay frozen for several weeks. Decorated boards with the initials of the deceased became an unusual memorial to the dead.