Break

Brake is a late 19th-century social vehicle for 8 passengers with roof for walks and summer trips, from late 19th century. It was manufactured by Josef Neuss, a well-known Berlin-based manufacturer of sleigh vehicles. Purchased by the Castle Museum in Łańcut for the Museum Vehicle Collection, this brake underwent a thorough renovation in the renowned company run by the Bogajewicz family in Pniewy Szamotulskie, operating in the years 1890– 2015. Brakes were open social vehicles, used in the 2nd half of the 19th and early 20th centuries on private estates, driven by professional servants as well as the owners themselves. They were used for horse races, walks, trips to the forest and picnics. They were characterised by a wooden body in the passenger area with two sideway benches for passengers with an entrance from the rear. They also always had a coachman set for driving. The brake in question, kept in Łańcut, is a vehicle with a very strong chassis construction and a heavy box, high body and a very high coachman seat. The boxy passenger section, with doors in the rear wall and two steps in front of them fixed to the footrest, is topped by an openwork gallery with transverse rungs in the side and rear walls. Inside, it has four side-by-side two-seater benches with chaise-like backs, and four wrought-iron, but detachable corner posts carrying a flat, timber-framed, light tarpaulin-clad canopy roof. The massive coachman seat of the brake, with angled footrest, has a long, curved crank-block brake lever on the right side, and an openwork, wrought-iron backrest. Aldona Cholewianka-Kruszyńska