Paintings

Overview

The Lobkowicz Collections are comprised of approximately 1,500 paintings, including iconic images by Brueghel the Elder and Canaletto; the finest collection of Spanish portraits outside Madrid and Vienna; representative works by Veronese, Velázquez, Rubens, Bellotto, and Cranach; Central European portraits by Hans von Aachen and the School of Prague; Dutch, Flemish and German genre paintings; and over 50 paintings and watercolors of Lobkowicz residences by Croll.

Highlights from the Paintings Collection

The paintings collection is dominated by three magnificent works of art that may be considered fundamental to the history of painting. These are Haymaking (1565) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1520/25-1569) and two panoramic views of London by Giovanni Antonio Canale, called Canaletto (1697-1768).

Other noteworthy highlights from The Collections include Hygieia Nourishing the Sacred Serpent (c. 1614) by the Flemish master, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, The Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine (c. 1520) by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (c. 1530) by Lucas Cranach the Younger, Caritas Romana (early-mid 16th century) by Georg Pencz and exquisite smaller paintings such as A Village in Winter (c. 1600) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and St. Martin Dividing his Cloak (1611) by Jan Brueghel the Elder. Venetian painting of the 16th century is represented by Paolo Veronese's David with the Head of Goliath (1575).

A prayerful Madonna by Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato (1609-1685) and paintings by Francesco del Cairo, Antonia Zanchi and Giovanni Paolo Pannini are highlights of the Italian baroque collection. The principal Lobkowicz residences and estates—Roudnice nad Labem, Nelahozeves, Jezeři and Bilina—are depicted in oils and watercolors, commissioned from the 19th-century German painter Carl Robert Croll.

Portraiture

The portraits contained in The Collections reveal the most about the Lobkowicz family's participation in European political and cultural life. An outstanding component of the paintings collection are the full-length Spanish portraits of Pernstejns, Lobkowiczes, Rožmberks and related members of European and ruling Habsburg dynasties by leading European painters including Alonso Sánchez Coello, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Jacob Seisenegger and Hans Krell. Among the portraits created in the 17th and the 18th century is the charming Spanish Infanta Margarita Theresa (c. 1655), attributed to Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). Later paintings of members of the Lobkowicz family are by the leading Viennese portraitists of the 19th century such as Franz Schrotzberg and Friedrich von Amerling.

The paintings collection is complemented by an extensive collection of graphics and drawings, including an exquisite set of engravings of Rome by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.