Prague Castle Picture Gallery - Collection

An upcoming long-term loan to the permanent collection (2009)

Landscape Painting from the Workshop of Jan Jakub Hartmann (1658-1736)

Jan Jakub Hartmann, first Bohemian landscapist ever, neither signed nor dated his works. Apart from characteristic features that they share, his works manifests considerable differences in presentation. He and his two sons, who were also trained landscape painters, almost certainly ran what we would now call a well-operating business, the Hartmann workshop. They successfully executed the orders of collectors who longed to own high-quality paintings comparable to the Late Mannerist works of the Netherlandish artists. The Hartmanns carried out these commissions with pictures subtly painted on canvas, wood, and copper. Their vivid colours and intriguing details have made them, in the Hartmanns’ day and ours, extraordinarily popular. The three landscape paintings exhibited here show the diversity of the Hartmanns’ approach.

Image No. 1 Jan Jakub Hartmann and the Workshop, Allegory of Fire, oil on copper, 45 x 67 cm, private collection, photo © Jan Frühauf, 2009

Image No. 2 Jan Jakub Hartmann, Coastal Landscape, oil on canvas, 60×95 cm, private collection

Image No. 4 Consolidation of the paint layers over the whole surface, and the gradual evening out of the painting support on “Allegory of Fire“ , photo © Jan Frühauf, 2009

Image No. 5 Jan Jakub Hartmann, Landscape with the Conversion of Saint Paul, oil on wood, 48 x 34cm,, private collection, photo © Jan Gloc, 2009