Puppet Museum

The Museum of Puppet Cultures (Muzeum loutkářských kultur) in Plzeň is one of only a few museums in the world dedicated entirely to the art of puppetry. The collection spans Central European marionettes, shadow puppets from Southeast Asia, Bunraku figures from Japan, and a strong Czech section tracing the development of domestic puppet theatre from the Baroque period to the present.

The Czech collection is the heart of the museum. You'll find 18th-century wooden marionettes with articulated fingers, 19th-century travelling puppet booths, and the kind of large-scale figures that Czech puppet masters built for children's theatre in the 20th century. There are also substantial holdings of wayang kulit shadow puppets from Indonesia and Javanese court puppets. The museum runs occasional puppet performances and workshops; check the schedule at the front desk. It is one of the more unusual and genuinely absorbing museums in Western Bohemia.

things to do museum
A story
Czech puppet theatre (loutkové divadlo) has a history going back to the 17th century, when itinerant puppet troupes toured Bohemia performing religious plays, comedies, and — most famously — versions of the Faust story. The Czech puppet Faust predates Goethe's version and follows a very different moral logic: in the Czech telling, Faust is not a tragic hero but a greedy fool who gets what he deserves. The Plzeň puppet tradition fed into what became one of the country's most-loved art forms, with Czech puppeteers earning a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation in 2016.