What Lies Beneath…Bruegel?
Since 2018 the Lobkowicz Collections has been part of a research project called "Inside Bruegel," led by Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. Alongside other panel paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder housed at KHM, the Lobkowicz Collections’ Haymaking (1565) was brought to KHM’s laboratory, where it underwent a technical study using modern imaging devices. Specialists scanned the painting using high-resolution macrophotography, infrared reflectography and macrophotography, and X-ray radiography.
This provides an unprecedented opportunity to see what lies beneath the surface of the painting, allowing specialists and art lovers alike to study the work in minute detail. More importantly, it permits the Lobkowicz Collections curators to more accurately observe any changes in the future condition of the painting to ensure preservation for future generations.
Historically unparalleled, the visitors of the Bruegel Room at the Lobkowicz Palace Museum will be able to discover the smallest details in Haymaking on touchscreen monitors. They can take a fun "pop-up tour" of the painting, read yet unpublished findings on its provenance, and soak up the atmosphere of the original masterpiece, amongst other things. Thanks to the financial support of the Flanders Chancellery and Foreign Ministry, the room in which the painting is displayed has also been newly refurbished.
The exhibition Inside Bruegel will join the permanent exhibition at the Lobkowicz Palace Museum in Prague Castle on April 27, 2022.
