The National Gallery Prague (Czech Republic) Receives Our Editor ~ A Massive Art Collection Spread Over Various Locations Around Prague

Written by Konrad Overmeyer Thursday, 08 September 2011 21:48

The National Gallery in Prague in the Czech Republic comprises a number of different sites spread around the city. Originating in February 1796 when a group of prominent patriotically oriented Czech nobility, along with several scholars from among the enlightened bourgeoisie decided to form a corporation, named “The Patriotic Friends of Art” that could then establish two important institutions that were lacking in Prague: An Academy of Arts and a publicly accessible picture gallery. In 1918, the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art turned into the central art collection of the new state of Czechoslovakia and ultimately the National Gallery. The Collection of Prints and Drawings (SGK) of the National Gallery in Prague, which is situated in Kinsky Palace in the Old Town Square, keeps some 320,000 prints and 60,000 drawings from the Middle Ages to the present. The National Gallery in Prague is also a research organization whose main purpose is to conduct basic and applied research and experimental development and to disseminate the results through scientific publications, exhibitions, educational programs, methodologies, or technological transfer. The National Gallery collects, records, stores, processes and provides public access to works of painting, sculpture and other graphic works as well as new media, both from domestic and famous foreign artists. With multiple individual galleries locations devoted to art from specific periods or regions, scattered around Prague, the National Gallery is colossal and it would take several days to visit every location. Two of the largest galleries are the Schwarzenberg Palace (near the castle) which contains much of the gallery’s Czech Baroque collection, and the “Fair Trade Palace” (which is located a short distance from the city centre), which houses the gallery’s modern and contemporary art collection. Visit the museum's website at: http://www.ngprague.cz

Entirely renovated, this gigantic Renaissance Palace located on Hradčanské Square (in front of the Prague Castle), adorned with “diamond point” sgraffitti, is worth a visit in itself. Its spacious rooms are bathed in light under sculpted wooden ceilings or beautiful vaulted frescoes, and the windows reveal unique panoramic views of the Petřín park, the ochre roofs of the Malá Strana and the Castle Square. The Palace was built between 1545 and 1576 for Count Jan Lobkowicz the Younger. Designed by the Italian master builder Agostino Galli, the palace is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Prague. Opened on March 28, 2008, the new permanent exhibition of Czech Baroque art in the Schwarzenberg Palace on Hradčany Square supplements the unique selection of exhibitions of art collections dating from different periods staged in the area of Prague Castle. Monumental stone sculptures welcome visitors when they enter the building, including the renowned stone sculptures by Matthias Bernhard Braun from the attic of the Clam-Gallas Palace in Prague (1714-1716) and the two Angels from the hermitage near Lysá nad Labem, accompanied by the Moor figures from the gate of Kounice Castle, created by Maximilian Brokof. Three interconnected rooms on the ground floor present an exhibition conceived according to traditional chronology and showing the stylistic periods of the Early, High and Late Baroque. Adjoining space shows the best-quality surviving examples of everyday workshop practice in art studios of the time, particularly those of the 18th century. The main galleries on the 1st and 2nd floors of the palace contain paintings presented chronology by stylistic cycles, spanning the time from the Late Renaissance, as represented by the works of artists active at the Prague court of Emperor Rudolf II, to the final waning of Baroque culture in the late 18th century. The collection includes all the great names of local fine arts of the 17th-18th centuries, with the emphasis on key figures including paintings by Hans von Aachen, Bartholomaeus Spranger, Roelant Savery, Michael Willmann, Johann Christoph Liška, Wenzel Lorenz Reiner, Anton Kern, Johann Peter Molitor, and Norbert Grund. The world of late Renaissance collections – cabinets of arts and curiosities – is recalled in a partial reconstruction of just such a collection with characteristic examples of small pictures and sculptures, and samples of the crafts of the period. The most important figures of Baroque painting in Bohemia – Karel Škréta and Peter Brandl – have intentionally been allocated prestigious spaces which do justice to the qualities of both the collections, considered the gems of the Gallery’s Collection of Old Masters. One of the rooms on the 1st floor also presents in deliberate confrontation the portraits by Peter Brandl, and those by Johann Kupecký. Both painters explored similar (French and Dutch) sources of inspiration found in European portraiture. Painting collections of 18th-century artists are accompanied by carefully selected samples of small-size carving of destinctive character, coming from the Prague studios of Franz Ignaz Weiss, Karl Joseph Hiernle, Johann Anton Quitainer, and Ignaz Franz Platzer, installed in modern glass cases with perfect lighting. Exhibitions are regularly held at the the Schwartzenberg Palace, the next being a collection of works by Roelandt Savery, court painter of Emperor Rudolf II, which opens on 12 June 2011.

The Czech art collection in the Schwartzenberg Palace is supplemented by the collections shown in the Sternberg Palace and Prgue Castle Gallery. The Sternberg Palace permanently houses the collection of old European Baroque Art, including paintings by El Greco, Rembrandt (portrait Scholar in his Study 1634) and Rubens. The gallery's proudest possession is Albrecht Durer's Feast of the Rose Garlands (1506). Other works include Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Jan Gossaert and the Brueghels, both father and son. The Chinese cabinet and and two fine Spanish works, El Greco's Head of Christ and a portrait by Goya of Don Miguel de Lardizabal. Italian renaissance works are represented by Andrea dells Robbia, Sebastiano del Piombo and Pietro delta Francesca. The Prague Castle Picture holds a vast collection of works of art gathered during and after the reign of Rudolf II, a big lover of art, who made Prague the cultural centre of Europe in his time. The permanent exhibition at the Prague Castle Picture Gallery offers the best 107 paintings and 3 statues selected from over 4,300 works of art in possession of Prague Castle. The oldest works in the collection come from the time of Rudolf II’s, even though only a few of them remained. The exhibition shows paintings collected during the centuries. Among the artists, whose works are on display in the Prague Castle Picture Gallery, belong Adriaen de Vries (a copy of a bust of Rudolf II), Titian (The Toilet of a Young Lady), Rubens (The Assembly of the Olympic Gods), Guido Reni (The Centaur Nessus Abducting Deianeira), Master Theodoric, Paolo Veronese, Czech Baroque artists Jan Kupecky and Petr Brandl, and many others.

Art of the 20th and 21 century, is displayed on three floors of the Trade Fair “Palace”. Works by some of the world's best known artists of the last two centuries including Delacroix, Monet (“Two Women among the Flowers”), Renoir, Degas, Gauguin (“Flight”), Van Gogh (“Green Rye”), Cézanne, Matisse, Schiele, Klimt, Munch, Picasso, and Andy Warhol. Pablo Picasso is represented by quite a few contrasting paintings, ranging from an impressive, primitivist Self Portrait, dating from 1907, to Clarinet (1911), a classic example of analytic Cubism. There are also works by Vlaminck, Derain, Braque, Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Fernand Leger, Marie Laurencin and Albert Marquet. The collection also includes sculptures from Rodin and Henri Laurens. Over 2,000 exhibits, varying from architecture, furniture, fashion, design, photographs, and paintings, are on show on a 13,500 square meter area. Until 27^th March, the Trade Fair Palace is showing a selection of drawings by John Štursa (1880 -1925). Also on view are the finalists of the National Gallery’s “333” competition for young artists. Other galleries included under the National Gallery umbrella include the Museum of Czech Cubism at the “house of the Black Madonna”, focussing on the years 1910-1919, ie the most important stage of Cubism in the Czech lands. Painting is represented by works by Emil Filla, Bohumil Kubišta, Vincent Beneš, Josef Čapek, Antonín Procházka, Václav Spala, John Zrzavý, Otakar Nejedly and Otakar Kubin, with sculptures by Otto Gutfreund. The National Gallery’s collection of Asian art is housed in the Zbraslav Chateau, The Monastery of St. George gallery shows 19^th century Czech works, while the Monastery of St. Agnes gallery show medieval Bohemian art.