Address
Topoliu str. 7 (the Old School), LT-28361,
Leliunai, Utena district.
Leliunai, a small town, is 12 kilometres away of Utena in the direction of
Kaunas.
Phone: +370-389-60885, +370-389-60869, +370-389-60870, +370-686-22807.
Information
for Visitors
Opening times:
Tuesday to Saturday
10.00-18.00.
Excursions to be reserved by abovementioned phones.
Additional
Services
The excursions include a visit to V. Valiusis studio where the
visitors may try the hand at throwing of pots and see how ceramic articles
are dried, decorated, glazed and roasted.
Souvenirs, ceramic articles, leaflets may be acquired at the Museum and
the studio.
Museum’s
Collection
The Museum’s collection contains stored specimens in old and
new ceramics, ethnographic exhibits.
Exposition
In the halls of expositions about 700 authentic specimens of
old ceramics are displayed, including mugs, tiles, crocks and pipkins,
cruses, ornate pitchers, big glazed cylinders for keeping of milk, honey,
butter, barrels for keeping of beer, meat, herring, flagons etc. Beside
them are placed new works of ceramic art, ethnographic exhibits.
The oldest earthenware, tarnished, but still not broken, are of 150 up to
200 years old. But most exhibits date back to first decades of the 20th
century.
The exposition is laid out somewhat incoherently what makes the visitor
intrigued. Some classrooms of the former school abound not only in ceramic
crockery, but also in other household utensils of wood, metal, glass.
Tubs, bottles, ancient furniture, vats, seedlips, thousand-year old burrs
intersperse the monotony of exposition.
Exhibitions
One hall of the Museum is designed for exhibitions of folk art.
Founding
of the Museum
The Museum was opened on March 16, 2001 on the first floor of
the Leliunai School. Folk artist V. Valiusis repaired shabby premises and
equipped the exposition at his own cost.
The Ceramics Museum is a subdivision of the Utena Regional Museum.
The initiator of the Museum is Vytautas Valiusis, the artist and
businessman.
Other
news about the Museum
Interesting roofpoles decorate the cemetery of Leliunai, near
the homestead of V. Valiusis (Slyvu str. 1). The enormous altar of pagan
times was brought from the small lake of Mulkiskis (the Kileviskiai
village) and placed at the house of Antanas Kukta where can be seen now.
The church of Leliunai may boast of splendid organ made in Karaliaucius
and chosen by Juozas Gruodis, the Lithuanian composer.
Leliunai is a birthplace of poet Algimantas Baltakis, academician
Kazimieras Meskauskas.
