Prague Castle Picture Gallery - About The Picture Gallery
The permanent exhibition on show at the Prague Castle Picture Gallery introduces visitors to a splendid collection of over one hundred prime paintings which have been carefully selected from some 4,000 in the possession of Prague Castle. Those pictures on display provide a fair representation of the finest available works of art. For in spite of the country’s chequered history whereby the collection incurred considerable losses the quality of paintings on view can compare favourably with the most significant European art collections. The roots go back to the end of the 16th century when Rudolf II amassed the largest collection of works of art in his day and age. Only a few of those paintings have been preserved from his famous gallery for the current collection. The new collection dating from the mid 17th century comprises significant works by Italian, German, Netherlands, Flemish and other masters. These, together with Czech masters of the Baroque period, which were purchased in the thirties of the 20th century thanks to the Masaryk fund, are now installed for all to see following considerable adaptations and reconstruction work to the gallery building.
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Winter season in the Picture Gallery: open daily 9am – 4 pm
Starting on Sunday, November 1, the Prague Castle Picture Gallery as well as other historical palaces and houses is open in a winter season schedule:
Open daily from 9am to 4pm.
On Mondays February 8, 22 and March 8, 22, the visit is free of charge from 4pm to 6pm.
The Gallery Talks (in Czech language) are held at 5pm every second Monday, according to the thematic and time schedule.
New cabinet exhibition from a long-term loan serie (till 13 November, 2009)
Wax portrait medals of Claudia Medici and Federico Ubaldo della Rovere
Colour wax portrait medals enjoyed much popularity at the courts of rulers in the second half of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. They originated in simple wax models used to make the moulds for casting metal medals, before developing into distinctive works of art around the middle of the 16th century, when in order to ensure longer durability colour wax and applications of metal, glass and pearl began to be used. The fragility and impermanence of the material meant that only a few wax medals were preserved. A rare example is the pair of portraits of a married couple from the collection of a Czech collector, currently on loan to the exhibition at the Prague Castle Picture Gallery.
Landscape Paintings Exhibition: the Workshop of Jan Jakub Hartmann
The cabinet painting of the landscape became a particularly popular form in the Bohemian Lands after 1700 as the nobility established picture galleries for themselves. Jan Jakub Hartmann (1658–1736), Johann Jakob in German, was the only painter specialized in the field. The presentation of Hartmann paintings at Prague Castle Gallery, thanks to a generous loan from a private collector, provides a unique opportunity to become acquainted with various aspects of the Hartmanns’ landscape painting. The three paintings on display also reveal the technical skill of the artists, their mastery of painting on wood and copper (surfaces particularly well suited to the miniature) as well as on canvas (which had to be carefully prepared for the delicately executed cabinet painting). /by Hana Seifertová, Jan Frühauf/
The most recent loan from a private collection is displayed in a “Rudolfine Masters“ exhibition hall at the Prague Castle Picture Gallery
Pieter Stevens, River Landscape, oil on canvas, 95×135 cm, c. 1610.
In 1594 he became a Court Painter to Rudolf II; at the Imeprial court in Prague he was chosen as a representative of
the Netherlandisch landscape painters that was orientated towards Italy. For visitors and art loving audience, there is a
special occasion to examine and observe this newly restored painting side by side to another Stevens´ masterpiece:
Landscape with a Watermill from the Art Collections of Prague Castle (c. 1610).
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28. 8. 2007
The most recent long-term loan to the permanent collection - Bartholomeus Spranger’s Allegory of the Turkish Wars
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