In the villa of Karel Čapek, experts are making an inventory of items

Prague - In the villa of Karel Čapek, experts have been compiling an inventory of all items in recent weeks. Archivists from the Museum of Czech Literature and the National Heritage Institute are working on-site together with municipal officials. The result will be a catalog of the inventory of the duplex villa that brothers Karel and Josef Čapek built. This was reported today by Bohumil Zoufalík, the mayor of Prague 10 (Independents).
Prague 10 purchased the property after lengthy negotiations last autumn. The municipality paid nearly 44 million crowns for the property and Čapek's estate; 28 million crowns for the property itself and 15.891 million for the historical inventory.
"A team composed of archivists from the Museum of Czech Literature, the National Heritage Institute, and our municipality is compiling and cataloging the complete inventory of this historical treasure of Prague 10," Zoufalík stated.
According to him, a precise inventory is being created in the villa, not only of all movable property that was part of the purchase agreement but also of items that were donated to the city by the villa's owner and the descendant of Čapek's wife, Karel Scheinpflug, which had not yet been evaluated by an expert.
The process of documenting the archives is quite time-consuming. Experts worked for three weeks in just one of the ground floor rooms.
The municipal leadership had previously promised that experts would decide on the future of the villa. Currently, the issue is being addressed by the council's committees and an expert working group. Committee members are expected to submit proposals to the councilors based on the working group's recommendations.
Zoufalík has previously stated that he would like to make the villa accessible to the public at least to a limited extent. People can view the historical site virtually on the municipal website. The interior of some rooms is particularly significant, having remained virtually unchanged since Čapek's death. It includes, for instance, the writer's library, archive, or travel items. Among the valuables obtained by the municipality are supposedly even unpublished drawings by Josef Čapek from the concentration camp.