European Art from Antiquity to Baroque
This permanent exhibition will be open until 15/09/2019.
The exhibition in the Sternberg Palace was opened to all the art lovers after an overall installation in the years 2002 and 2003. The first part encompasses the works of art from the ancient Greece and Rome. The first floor exhibition halls further house the famous works of 14th - 16th century art that come from the Konopište Castle collection of Archduke Franz Ferdinand d´Este. It contains the works of older Tuscan masters (B. Daddi, Lorenzo Monaco), the works of Venetian school (Vivarini workshop) and the masterpieces of Florentine Mannerism (A. Bronzino, A. Allori). The icons on display offer the examples of works from the most of the important Mediterranean and East European centres.
On the second floor of the palace are exhibited the works of Italian, Spanish, French and Netherlandish masters from the 16th to the 18th century. The paintings by the most famous European artists such as Tintoretto, Ribera, Tiepolo, El Greco, Goya, Rubens and van Dyck can be found here. The collection of Flemish and Dutch masters dominated by works of Rembrandt, Hals, Terborch, Ruysdale and van Goyen is characterized by an extraordinary quality. The separate cabinet installed in the first half of the 19th century style reminds us of the famous collector and patron Josef Hoser, to whom the National Gallery owes for the essential part of its collection of old masters.
The ground floor houses the exhibition of German and Austrian art of the 16th to 18th century. Besides many masterpieces by e. g. Lucas Cranach or Hans Baldung called Grien one can find here one of the most famous works of the European painting The Feast of the Rosary by Albrecht Dürer. The painting was completed in Venice in 1506 and later it was purchased and trasferred to Prague by Emperor Rudolf II.
The exhibition is supplemented by chamber collections of arts and crafts and small sculpture of the period. The drawings and prints of the past centuries are on display in the cabinet of prints and drawings. On the walls and ceilings of the exhibition halls can be seen again the original murals exposed.