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Object Overview
Before us is a small yet highly characteristic object of its era — a Radium Barometer, produced around 1930 by a Polish printing house. It takes the form of a decorative paper card measuring 85 × 110 mm, bearing an illustration, a printed instruction, and a colour legend for interpreting its indications. The very format of the card, its concise composition, and the combination of graphic imagery with explanatory text suggest that the object should be understood as a souvenir or decorative domestic curiosity, intended to popularize science in everyday life and to reinforce the cultural cult surrounding Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
The card is designed in the spirit of interwar decorative graphic style, closely related to the aesthetics of Art Deco. Along the perimeter runs an ornamental border composed of a repeating geometrized motif with oval elements and angular decorative inserts. At the centre of the composition appears an image of a female figure placed within a rectangular field. Beneath the illustration is a legend with a colour scale explaining the weather predictions.
The female figure is depicted in a light dress and in a dynamic pose with her arms widely outstretched. She appears to move forward or to step into a current of air. Her posture simultaneously evokes a gesture of dance, a running movement, or a gust of wind — yet in reality it represents an allegorical gesture, characteristic of the artistic language of the 1920s–1930s. Such imagery was widely used in European graphic art of the Art Deco period, where the human body served as a metaphor for movement, energy, and interaction with the surrounding environment. In this instance the figure symbolizes sensitivity to atmospheric changes.
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cardboard, cobalt salts
The choice of a female image is not accidental. In the visual culture of the time the female figure was often associated with changeability, responsiveness to the surrounding environment, natural forces, mood, and transformation of state. Thus the woman becomes an allegory of the weather itself. Yet in this particular case another association may also be present — the discovery of radioactivity by the celebrated woman scientist Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
Of particular importance is the dress, which becomes the key element of the composition. In the functioning of the barometer it is precisely the fabric of the figure that acts as the indicator, changing colour depending on the humidity of the air. In this sense the dress is not merely a garment but a surface of chemical reaction, serving as an analogue of an instrument scale.
The image therefore transforms a scientific principle into a visual metaphor: the weather “colours” the woman’s dress, just as atmospheric humidity alters the colour of a chemical substance.
The period during which this barometer was produced was marked by extraordinary fascination with radioactive elements and the newly discovered forces of nature. In 1898, the physicists Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie discovered the elements radium and polonium. This discovery became a worldwide sensation. The Curies’ work was awarded the Nobel Prize and sparked enormous interest in radioactivity as a symbol of scientific progress. The discovery resonated particularly strongly in Poland.
Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw and was regarded by Polish society as a national pride. Consequently, in the culture of interwar Poland the word “radium” acquired an almost symbolic meaning — a sign of advanced science. It is also well known that the chemical element polonium was named after Polonia, the Latin name for Poland, the homeland of Skłodowska-Curie. This was not merely a scientific designation but also a political and symbolic gesture. When Skłodowska proposed the name, Poland did not exist as an independent state. Its territory had been partitioned between the Russian Empire, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. The choice of name therefore carried a hidden meaning — it was a scientific way of reminding the world of the existence of Poland.
At the beginning of the twentieth century a true “radium mania” emerged. The name of radium appeared in the advertising of cosmetics, medical preparations, watches, household devices, and decorative scientific novelties. Such products rarely had any genuine connection with radioactivity, yet the word “radium” itself evoked ideas of modernity, progress, and mysterious natural forces. The present barometer represents a typical example of this phenomenon.
All inscriptions on the card are written in Polish. The name of the instrument reads: «BAROMETR CHEMICZNO – RADJOWY», which translates as “Chemical-Radium Barometer.” Particularly interesting is the spelling of the word radjowy. In modern Polish it is written radiowy, but during the interwar period an older orthographic practice was still used, in which the combination dj represented the sound di. This spelling helps confirm the dating of the object to the first half of the twentieth century.
Beneath the illustration appears the explanation: «Wskazuje pogodę przez zmianę koloru (“Shows the weather through a change of colour”)Below this appears the colour scale:
The principle of use is extremely simple. The card would be placed in a room or near a window. Depending on the humidity of the air, the coloured portion of the image — the fabric of the dress — changed its colour. The observer compared the visible shade with the colour legend and thus drew conclusions about the weather. Such devices were in fact hygrometric indicators, responding to humidity rather than atmospheric pressure.
Despite its name, such instruments did not contain radium. Radium does not change colour in response to atmospheric conditions and cannot serve as a weather indicator. Moreover, pure radium does not possess its own luminosity; the glowing substances known from watches and instruments relied instead on phosphors excited by radioactivity.
In reality, the functioning of these cards was based on cobalt salts, most commonly cobalt chloride. This compound has a characteristic property: in dry air it appears blue, when exposed to moisture it becomes pink, and intermediate humidity produces a lilac shade. The card therefore reacts not to pressure but to humidity, effectively functioning as a hygrometer.
On the reverse side of the card several handwritten inscriptions remain, partly erased. The date 31 / 10 / 1933 can be clearly read. This was probably the date of purchase or presentation. Nearby one can distinguish an address beginning with the words “Pani …” (“To Mrs…”), followed by a name, possibly Regina or a similar form. Much of the inscription was later deliberately removed, though the date and signature were left intact. Such notes are typical of domestic objects from the interwar period and likely reflect the personal character of the item — perhaps the barometer was given as a gift.
This small Radium barometer thus represents a curious example of popular science and decorative domestic devices in interwar Europe. It combines the graphic language of the Art Deco era, the cultural fascination with radioactivity, the symbolic name of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, and a simple chemical principle based on the properties of cobalt salts. Despite its grand name, the device is less a scientific instrument than a poetic visual representation of weather, in which atmospheric change is expressed through the movement and colour of a female figure.