The 17th century marks an era of enormous significance in Dutch art. The economic prosperity of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces went hand in hand with a tremendous boom in art production, one that also affected the graphic arts. Dutch printmakers drew on the strong tradition of Netherlandish engraving, a genre that achieved masterly ...

The exhibition prepared by National Gallery Prague in collaboration with Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud Köln is dedicated to one of the greatest painters of all time – Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606 Leiden – 1669 Amsterdam). It centres on A Scholar in His Study from the NGP collection. The painting was ...

In 1669, Wenceslaus Hollar was sixty-two years old and had behind him a long and fruitful creative career. During those years he lived chiefly in England, after having moved from Prague to Germany and a several year hiatus when he lived in Antwerp. Yet there was one more great journey awaiting him, thanks to which he created the very best works of ...

Wenceslaus Hollar was born in Prague in 1607. In 1627 he left his native city and spent several years in Germany. In 1636 he met the English diplomat Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, in Cologne, where he entered his service and afterwards left for England as a member of Arundel’s entourage. At Arundel’s court, Hollar worked ...

The four seasons have a special place in Wenceslaus Hollar’s wide range of themes (1607–1677). The theme was especially popular in the 17th century Low Countries. Hollar did his first artworks as early as 1628–1629 while in Germany; these comprised some of his first high-quality etchings after designs of his Netherlandish ...

Painter, draughtsman and graphic artist Wallerant Vaillant (1623, Lille – 1677, Amsterdam) was a brilliant portraitist, but he is most renowned for being the first professional graphic artist to work in mezzotint. He trained in Antwerp with painter Erasmus Quellinus II, a collaborator of Peter Paul Rubens. Vaillant became professionally ...

The year 2014 marks the 450th anniversary of the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the world’s most distinguished artists. This Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet created a body of work that is one of the peaks of Renaissance art. His originality and profound psychological insight opened the path to Mannerism and a modern ...

Hogarth’s cycles of paintings illustrating the material as well as moral decline of the individual were launched in 1732 by A Harlot’s Progress. It was followed by A Rake’s Progress and Marriage a la Mode. A Rake’s Progress exemplifies how inspiring the narrative of the desperate story of the ruin of modern man could be, ...

Ignaz Franz Platzer (Pilsen 1717 – Prague 1787) was the leading representative of Bohemian late-Baroque sculpture and the founder of a dynasty of sculptors who were active in Prague as long as to the late 19th century. Platzer received the rudiments of his craft in the workshop of his father, a Pilsen woodcarver. The fundamental point of ...

French painter Nicolas Poussin (1694–1665) belongs to the most important Baroque artists. Poussin was born in Normandy; after initial training in Normandy he improved his art in Paris, but his work did not achieve its characteristic style until after his relocation to Italy in 1623. He settled in Rome and, except for two years spent in ...

Entrepreneur Vojtěch Lanna Jr. (1836–1909) was one of the major art collectors of his time and his collections rightly won international acclaim. Lanna was also one of the greatest art patrons of the 19th century. He systematically supported public institutions with generous donations of artworks and money. His extensive donations of the ...

Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1480–1534) is the only graphic artist to whom Giorgio Vasari devoted a separate entry in his famous treatise Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Such exclusivity does indeed testify to the respect enjoyed by the artist, as well as to his historical significance.  Raimondi received ...

The Collection of Prints and Drawings of the National Gallery in Prague is among the ten largest and most preeminent graphic collections in Europe. With some 450,000 prints, drawings and illuminated manuscript fragments dating from the Middle Ages to the present, it is the National Gallery’s largest collection. The collection evolved ...

The Collection of Asian and African Art houses more than 13,000 artefacts from Japan, China, Korea, Tibet, South and Southeast Asia, the Islamic cultural region and Africa. The number and significance of its items make it a major European collection. Since its establishment in 1951, the collection has grown through purchases, transfers from other ...