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382 Matthew Rampley Eitelberger’s views were central to his activity not only as a scholar but also as mu- seum director, and this brings us back to his letter to Henszlmann. As Diana Reynolds has argued, at its very foundation, the Museum of Art and Industry, and its school of design and applied art, was an imperial institution intended to encompass the creative activities of all peoples of the Empire ; while he lacked the resources to set up further museums beyond Vienna, he was highly supportive of local initiatives that established museums and schools of design and industry in, for example, Brünn (Brno), Prague, Reichenberg (Liberec) and Budapest.54 The museum Eitelberger founded stayed broadly loyal to this mission, long after his death. The pages of the Mittheilungen des k. k. Öster- reichischen Museums (and its successor from 1898, Kunst und Kunsthandwerk) are full of reviews and reports not only on major international museums and exhibitions, but also on often quite minor and provincial towns across the Austrian crownlands. Indeed, the museums of industry and applied arts were, he thought, a showcase for the universal artistic culture he understood to span national, ethnic and class differences. This also shaped their relation to their publics. When he founded the Museum of Art and Indus- try the primary audience consisted of industrial producers : artisans and designers, as well as the larger-scale industrialists who commissioned particular designs and were responsible for their large-scale production. For even though the aim was to improve taste, Eitelberger viewed this problem in terms of supply rather than demand. The idea that the purchasing public might become more discerning thanks to the museum ex- hibits was a secondary consideration. Yet though reform was directed at producers, the museums of design were not to be understood as being for their particular needs. As he noted in his review of design museums across the Empire : “Es handelt sich bei diesen Museen nicht darum, das particulare Interesse der Fabrikanten und das Einzelinteresse der Handwerker zu fördern  – denn für solche particulare Interessen gründet man keine Museen […].”55 Again, this included the issue of cultural identity, for while many mu- seums were set up in smaller provincial towns, their purpose should not be to promote only local or national culture, for the ultimate goal was to improve competitiveness on the world market : “Ebenso ist es grundfalsch, solche Museen auf nationaler Grundlage […]. Taste is not something that can be placed under a political glass cover ; it does not tolerate iso- lation.” Eitelberger, Die Kunstbestrebungen Österreichs (cit. n.  38), p.  199. 54 D. Reynolds, Die Österreichische Synthese : Metropole, Peripherie und die kunstgewerblichen Fachschulen des Museums, in : Noever (ed.), Kunst und Industrie (cit. n.  3), pp.  203–218. 55 “With these museums it is not a question of supporting the particular interests of factory owners or the individual interests of craftsmen ; we don’t establish museums for such particular interests.” Eitelberger, Die Gewerbemuseen in den Kronländern Österreichs (cit. n.  4), p.  254. Open Access © 2019 by BÖHLAU VERLAG GMBH & CO.KG, WIEN