The National Gallery in Prague – Collection of Old Masters
The artwork becomes part of the permanent exhibition of Mannerism and Baroque in Bohemia in St George’s Convent as of October 5, 2006.

The National Gallery in Prague wishes to express its gratitude to the private collector for his kind lending of the painting.

Exhibition’s curator: Marcela Vondráčková, Ph. D.

Admission fee:
Basic fee: 100 Kč
Reduced fee: 50 Kč
Family admission: 150 Kč

Opening hours:
Open daily from 10 a. m. to 6 p. m.

The National Gallery in Prague – St George’s Convent
Jiřské nám. 33, 119 00 Prague 1
Transport: tram No. 22, 23 > Pražský hrad stop

Principal partner: HVB Bank
Principal media partner: Hospodářské noviny
Sponsor of the National Gallery in Prague: Synot Lotto a.s.
Media partners: art&antiques, Czech Radio ČRo 3 - Vltava, Radio Classic FM

Contact for journalists:  Eva Kolerusová, 222 321 459, 724 501 535, kolerusova@ngprague.cz
Press and Public Relations Department of the National Gallery in Prague
www.ngprague.cz

newly on loan

The painting by PIETER STEVENS
River Landscape, c. 1610

Owing to the courtesy of a private collector, a painting by the Rudolfine landscape painter Pieter Stevens (1567?–after 1626) has been loaned to the exhibition of Mannerism and Baroque in Bohemia in St George’s Convent. It is the painting called River Landscape, that made an interesting enrichment of the small collection of artwork produced at the court of the art-loving emperor, which is on display at the permanent exhibition.

Rudolf II transformed Prague into a major artistic centre at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. The emperor was also interested in landscape painting which had been established as a separate discipline in the course of the 16th century. The paintings of landscapes attracted his attention not only in aesthetic terms but also as objects of scientific observation and learning. The partly surviving inventories of imperial collections show that many landscape paintings by various artists had been included; the emperor was familiar with the contemporary production and sought to employ painters specialized in this genre in his services.

The court in Prague employed the landscape painters Pieter Stevens and Roelant Savery but other artists, too, painted landscapes and produced graphic art, such as Aegidius Sadeler or Paulus van Vianen. They had visited major art centres and continued in the Brueghel tradition to a greater or smaller extent. Ranging widely from immediately captured reality to expressive and decorative compositions, their work reflects an effort to record the details observed in a most natural and convincing manner as well as to seize a romantic mood and later also a monumental effect.

The first to appear was Pieter Stevens (1567?–after 1626) who worked in the services of Rudolf II as a landscape painter since 1594 and remained in the court milieu even after the emperor’s death in 1612. After a professional training in his native Netherlands and a study trip to Italy, he presented himself in Prague as an experienced painter and draughtsman. In the beginning, Stevens also employed motifs related to his previous experience – under the influence of his memories of Italy, he made paintings and drawings of Roman ruins with a deep perspective of landscape and, simultaneously, also painted village feasts in the Nederlandish tradition. The artist soon concentrated on small landscape vistas without a distant horizon, which look more natural. Also impressions of the forests in Prague’s vicinity became an inspiration for him, just as for his colleagues. His paintings are always composed vistas cultivated to a representative form in a studio as Stevens never captured immediate impressions in his work.

It is the dramatically rendered sky, an interest in detail and, particularly, an emphasis on light effects, which seize the viewer’s attention in the newly displayed landscape painting of village dwellings by the river with a bridge and a town in the distance as a background. A citadel on top of the hill, vaguely reminding of Prague Castle, testifies to Stevens’ interest in urban motifs which appear especially in his drawings. His effort to capture atmospheric and light effects which he skilfully rendered in his water colour paintings shows that he had thoroughly studied the artwork of his fellow landscape painters active at Rudolf’s court after 1600, who acquainted Stevens with up-to-date trends of contemporary landscape painting. Though with some changes in the background and figural staffage, the same composition appears in a series of graphic sheets Eight Views of Bohemia, which were made by engraver Aegidius Sadeler in 1605–1610 after Stevens’ models.

In the polyphony of Rudolfine landscape painting which developed under hegemony of Nederlandish landscape painting, Pieter Stevens occupies a rather traditional place. Consequently, it is typical that his style became a source of inspiration for the local early Baroque artists, including the members of his own family who settled down in Prague and lived here until the 18th century under the aristocratic name of Von Steinfels.