Cuba Material collection · Colección Cuba Material
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Beer Coaster, "U sv. Tomáše" (Prague), with Manuscript Spanish Inscriptions
Object/Artifact
Round pressed wood-pulp beer coaster, printed on the recto and densely hand-annotated on the verso. The recto (Image 1) shows a woodcut-style emblem: a bishop-saint in mitre with halo, holding a crosier and raising the right hand in blessing, framed by church spires, set in a yellow square over a green semicircular ground; below, in black blackletter, "u sv. / Tomáše" ("At St. Thomas's"), flanked by yellow lozenge ornaments. The verso (Image 2) has written in ballpoint: "20/12/86 · Bela y yo de P... queridos amiguitos" followed by signatures. Five other identical items without inscription.
2025.1.322
Belonged to Leopoldo Arús Caraballo.
A piece of Prague hospitality ephemera repurposed in Cuban working life — the kind of secondary use the collection documents. "U sv. Tomáše" in Malá Strana, Prague, is the city's oldest beer hall, on the site of the Augustinian monastery of St. Thomas where brewing began in 1352; the emblem depicts its patron saint. The verso notes are Cuban: written in Spanish as a memento.
The Cabrera Arús family collection
Leopoldo Arús Caraballo collection
2025.1
U Sv. Tomáše
Prague
Czechoslovakia
Eastern Europe
Europe
Recto (printed coaster): issued for the beer hall "U sv. Tomáše," Letenská, Malá Strana, Prague, Czechoslovakia. Printer/designer not identified. Verso (manuscript): unidentified Cuban author (probably Leopoldo Arús Caraballo); Spanish-language working notes. Date: coaster circa 1950s–1980s (tentative; the pub operated throughout the socialist period). Secondary-use notes undatable. Place: printed for a Prague establishment, Czechoslovakia; annotated by a Cuban hand (location of annotation unknown).
Note
back
20/12/86 Bela y yo de P... queridos amiguitos (signatures)
Spanish
20/12/86 Bela and me F... dear friends (signatures)
10.5 cm
Five other identical items without inscription.
Cardboard
Pressed/molded wood-pulp board (beer-mat board); printing ink (black, green, yellow); blue ballpoint ink (manuscript).
Good
Leopoldo Arús Caraballo
Leopoldo Arús Gálvez
owner
Prague
Czechoslovakia
Eastern Europe
Europe
acquisition, production
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
use
"U sv. Tomáše" in Prague's Malá Strana is the city's oldest beer hall — beer was brewed at the Augustinian monastery of St. Thomas from 1352 under Charles IV; the brewing tradition was broken by the 1950 monastery suppression ("Akce K"), after which the pub continued but its beer was brought in from Braník, until a new owner closed it in 2006. Nuevitas is a port and industrial city in Camagüey province, Cuba.