Two New Exhibitions Opening at the Maritime Museum
Text Timo Raussi Photo Andrei Chertkov
The Estonian Maritime Museum is opening two new exhibitions at its Tallinn sites this week and next. The Seaplane Harbour café/restaurant is also once again in full operation under a new operator.
On Friday, 13 February, the exhibition “The Call of the Sea”, or “Mere kutse” in Estonian, opens at the Seaplane Harbour. It presents to the public a broad collection of maritime-themed paintings from the Maritime Museum’s archives—an art form recognised as an independent subgenre in art history. “We pay tribute to the artists who have answered the call of the sea with their brushstrokes, even though they were not professional artists but, for example, sailors, fishermen, ship captains, and naval personnel,” says the exhibition curator and keeper of the Maritime Museum’s art collection, Laura Jamsja.
One of the first works in the collection arrived at the Maritime Museum on its opening day, 23 February 1935, when Captain Alfred Horst donated the painting “At Anchor off Tallinn, 1820”, or “Tallinna reid 1820. aastal”. Over the past 90 years, the collection has grown to more than 900 works, including drawings, watercolours, oil paintings, and sculptures. “The exhibition features 51 works on display. In addition, we present 60 graphic works in digital form,” notes museum director Urmas Dresen.
As an independent art form focusing on everyday maritime themes rather than landscapes, the history of marine painting dates back to the turn of the 1400s and 1500s. The golden age of this art form in Western Europe includes, for example, the 17th century in the Netherlands and the 18th century in Great Britain, when artworks often depicted national achievements. One part of the genre highlighted in the exhibition is portraits of sea captains and paintings of ships commissioned by shipping companies. More information about the exhibition, open until early November, can be found here.
On Thursday, 19 February, a lighthouse-themed stamp exhibition will be opened at the Fat Margaret Visitor Centre of the Maritime Museum. Between 1995 and 2025, the Estonian postal service has issued a series of 39 postage stamps illustrated by graphic artist Roman Matkiewicz, who is also part of the Maritime Museum’s staff. The stamps depict Estonian lighthouses along with map drawings referencing their locations.
The first stamp in the series portrayed the Pakri lighthouse, but the collection also includes, for example, “Estonia’s own Leaning Tower of Pisa,” the tilted Kilpse Lighthouse, as well as a lighthouse that no longer exists in real life. The exhibition features large-format enlargements of all stamps for easier viewing, along with a selection of first-day covers, cancellations, and other items of interest to philatelists. The exhibition is open until 30 August.
At the turn of the year, the Maritime Museum also changed the operator of the café/restaurant located on its premises. After renovations lasting throughout January, the Seaplane Harbour is now served by Reval Café, offering breakfasts, lunches with main courses, and confectionery treats to accompany coffee, tea, or cocoa. The menu can be viewed here.
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