Furnishing funds are collections of movable items that have been declared cultural heritage as per Act No. 20/1987 Coll., as amended, and items of cultural value, i.e. items which fulfil the criteria of Act No. 71/1994 Coll., as amended. Together they form the movable furnishings of historic properties.
The collections under the care National Cultural Monumentof the National Heritage Institute comprise of almost a million objects, which feature immeasurable historic, cultural and artistic merits. They include objects from various classification types e.g. paintings, sculptures, furniture, lighting, clothing, weapons and many other relics of everyday life and daily needs of our ancestors. They date from various time periods, and were either acquired by the original owners of the historic property in question, or brought in from different locations during the 1950s. The public may view these objects during visits to castles and historic country houses, as the furnishings of period interiors, or at various seasonal or thematic exhibitions, or read about them in professional literature, but also even in magazines, and occasionally in the daily press.
The NPU registers furnishing items in the CastIS program, specially evolved for the needs of heritage management. Every record contains basic details to identify the object, its specialist description and photo documentation. The application also includes details about the movement of the items and contacts to the administration of the property. It is possible to attach photographs, digitalised documents of all types related to the object, video records showing the location of objects in the interior, sound records for specific classification types of objects etc.
For security reasons the records are not accessible to the ordinary citizen. If, however, a justifiable reason exists, individual regional departments allow, with the agreement of the director, access to information to certain persons - researchers, under stipulated conditions with prior approval.