Museum of pharmacy - Red cryfish pharmacy

Characteristics:

TheMuseumofPharmacyis housed in a part of a former pharmacy called the Red Crayfish on the ground-floor of a Baroque burgher’s house built within the barbican of St. Michael’s Gate adjacent to the moat. In the mid-18^thcentury the front façade of the house was re-constructed in the Classicist style and extended with a stone entrance in the Rococo style. The front façade is adorned with an original cast-iron pharmacy sign with forged canthus ornamentation and crayfish from the end of the 19^thcentury, manufactured in theBratislavasmithy named Márton.

The original pharmacy “Red Crayfish” appears in records as early as the mid-16^thcentury and it occupied five rooms from the 18^thcentury up to its closure and its transformation into a pharmacy museum in 1953. The current exhibition displays the history of pharmacy inBratislavain the first of three rooms. The entrance room is furnished with the original “Red Crayfish” pharmacy fittings. The furniture set constructed from stained beech in the Empire style standing along three walls of the room is supplemented with a tare balance and a stand for a hand-balance. This equipment is supplemented with faience, stoneware, wooden, china and glass containers for storing medicines dating from a period extending from the end of the 18^thcentury up to the mid-20^thcentury. The atmosphere of the room is enhanced by paintings in the Baroque – Classicist style from the end of the 18^thcentury with a theme of healing, with a balustrade and three figurative compositions on the vaulted ceiling.