Prague Castle Picture Gallery - Temporary Exhibitions
2008 | 2007
A Metamorphosis: Diana and Actaeon, by Bernaert de Rijckere (1535 – 1590)
5 September – 30 November 2008
The story from classical antiquity about the fateful encounter between the mythical huntsman Actaeon and the goddess Diana (Artemis), dramatized chiefly by the poet Ovid in Metamorphoses, achieved exceptional popularity in sixteenth-century France. There, influenced by the social, political and cultural milieu, it became an example of the Mannerism of what is known as the School of Fontainebleau. Evidence of this is the painting by Bernaert de Rijckere from the Collections of Prague Castle. This mini-exhibition from ‘The Picture Gallery Up Close’ series seeks to acquaint Gallery visitors with the fascinating and influential context in which a surprising number of works on this topic were made, and also to present lesser-known views of the metamorphosis of the hero Actaeon.
The Cranach Altarpiece, the Fire of 1541, and St Vitus’s Cathedral
8 April – 29 June 2008
prolonged till 1 September 2008
At Christmas 1619, not long after Frederick V, Elector Palatine, had come briefly to the Bohemian throne, the work known as the ‘Prague Altarpiece of Lucas Cranach’ (one of the most important German painters of the first half of the sixteenth century) was attacked by iconoclastic Calvinist and Unitas Fratrum Protestants. Using the surviving fragments together with a carved wood panel showing the destruction of the cathedral interior and a print, the current exhibition seeks not only to identify the original location of the altarpiece in connection with the person who probably commissioned it, but also to reveal the strange circumstances of its destruction.
Rudolfine Beauty: Recently Discovered Works by Painters at the Court of Emperor Rudolf II.
10. 4. 2007 - 31. 3. 2008 – prolonged till 9 January, 2009
Author: PhDr. Eliška Fučíková, CSc.
This exhibition is focused on the origins of the Prague Castle collections. Thanks to the generosity of a foreign admirer of Rudolfine art, four works, most probably made for these spaces, have returned for a year’s stay in the milieu originally connected with a great period of the Castle, when it was the imperial residence of Rudolf II.
For the first time since their discovery three paintings and one sculpture from a private collection are being presented by Prague Castle Gallery in a public exhibition. The hitherto unknown, uncatalogued works with subject matter from classical mythology and the Bible were made by important artists at Rudolf’s court: the German painter, diplomat, and buyer of artworks for the imperial collections Hans von Aachen (Cologne 1551/52 - Prague 1615); the Flemish painter and draughtsman Bartholomeus Spranger (Antwerp 1546 - Prague 1611); and the Netherlandish sculptor Adriaen de Vries (The Hague c.1556 - Prague 1626).