After Eliska Passed Away, This Old Apartment Was Never Entered Again
This old apartment belonged to Eliska Novotná for nearly thirty years.
Eliska worked as a theater costume button cataloguer, organizing and documenting antique buttons salvaged from historical garments and stage costumes for restoration studios and theaters.
The apartment remained modest:
front room, compact kitchen, bedroom, and a narrow catalog room where Eliska sorted collections and maintained archival records.
The Archive Box Mantel
Several details still remain inside:
- button trays sorted by material
- catalog cards stacked near shelves
- magnifying glasses resting beside notebooks
- fabric swatches folded inside boxes
- wool cardigans hanging near hooks
- theater catalogues stored near drawers
- unfinished sorting boards preserved beneath the mantel
Eliska had lived alone since her husband died many years earlier.
The catalog room shaped her routine and identity.
Former colleagues remembered her apartment for its extraordinary order and shelves filled with tiny labeled compartments.
During Eliska’s later years, budget reductions and the closure of several regional theaters sharply reduced much of the archival costume work she once depended upon.
Projects became increasingly scarce.
Still, she continued cataloguing private collections and assisting restoration specialists whenever possible.
One autumn brought prolonged electrical failures and repeated heating breakdowns throughout older apartment buildings.
Already weakened by long-term cardiovascular illness, Eliska struggled through the increasingly cold conditions.
She passed away quietly during the first snow season.
Her relatives attended the funeral but remained scattered across different countries and never settled the apartment.
The property remained closed.
Most belongings stayed untouched.
Today the apartment still reflects Eliska’s careful routine.
The button trays remain sorted.
The catalog cards still rest beside the shelves.
And beneath the archive box mantel, Eliska’s final unfinished costume inventory remains exactly where she left it.
