Prints

The collection of prints, numbering over 8000 items, represents valuable study material, in particular for historical and artistic topography. The greater part of the collection consists of vedute of a wide variety of localities in the Czech lands – towns, castles, chateaux, monasteries, and sacral buildings. There are also depictions of historical events and various festivities, such as the coronation of Bohemian monarchs.

The chronological range of the print collection is a broad one, from the 15th to the 20th century, with the largest number of items coming from the 19th century. The collection also includes a set of drawings, gouaches, aquarelles, and aquatints of residences of the aristocracy, including the adjacent landscaped parks, from the estates of the Counts Černín (in particular Krásný Dvůr), the Counts Chotek (e.g. Kačina, Veltrusy), and others. Many of the items in the collection are quite unique iconographic sources for objects that today no longer exist or have been reconstructed. The pictures of the interiors of chateaux and palaces are also worthy of note.

From the artistic and collector's point of view, the most valuable items can be considered to be a set of views of Prague, which includes, among other things, work by Václav Hollar; there are also complete series of engravings of Czech aristocratic residences by Friedrich Bernhard Werner (ca. 1740), and of coloured vedute of the Adršpašské Rocks and the Giant Mountains by Antonín Karel Balzer (late 18th century).

A complete inventory and digitalisation of the collection is currently taking place. For this reason, there is at present only limited access to the collection, by arrangement.

Curator: PhDr. Štěpán Vácha, Ph.D., vacha.at.udu.cas.cz