The exhibition Old Masters in the Schwarzenberg Palace presents selected key artworks from the Collection of Old Masters (Hans von Aachen, Petr Brandl, Matthias Bernard Braun, Lucas Cranach, Adriaen de Vries, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, Francisco José Goya, Hans Holbein, Jan Gossaert, also known as Jan Mabuse, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jusepe de Ribera, Peter Paul Rubens, Bartholomaeus Spranger, Karel Škréta, Simon Vouet, Michael Leopold Willmann and others).

The display concentrates on the period between the 16th and 18th centuries and the pre-Renaissance tendencies in Gothic and Antiquity art as inspirational stimuli for Renaissance and Baroque art. The exhibition is conceived as a dialogue of the national and international impulses, influences and changes in the spirit of the dialectic of forms, styles and motifs. In dramaturgical terms, the display reflects the narrative aspects of European art from the Antiquity to the Enlightenment, as well as the historical context and timelessness of the masterpieces in an innovative installation.

The original entrance to the Schwarzenberg Palace from Hradčanské Square via the courtyard is restored. Three rooms on the ground floor are reserved for occasional exhibitions of artefacts from the National Gallery’s collections and two will serve for the Graphic Cabinets.

The exhibition’s architectural concept follows this plan: the ground floor is its “prologue”, the first and second floors looks like a thematic panorama of Renaissance and Baroque art and the loft will focus on the collecting activities, painting and sculpture, sketches and cabinet painting in new contexts.

National Gallery Prague — Schwarzenberg Palace