From 4th September until the end of October the National Gallery in Prague is presenting, in the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia, one of the key works from the beginnings of Czech Gothic painting in the middle of the 14th century – the panel with the Enthroned Madonna and Child between St Catherine and St Margaret – kindly loaned for this short-term presentation by the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou.
The panel painting comes, according to old tradition, from the Cistercian Monastery in Zlatá Koruna near Český Krumlov. Přemysl Otakar II founded the monastery, originally called Svatá Koruna, in the sixties of the 13th century. In the 14th century the Zlatá Koruna Cistercians were the supporters of the king’s power in South Bohemia – in a region where the powerful Rožmberk family, with its seat in the nearly castle of Krumlov, dominated. One of the most significant artistic fundings financed by the Rožmberks, concretely the supreme chancellor of Charles IV, Petr I of Rožmberk, was the famous Vyšší Brod Altarpiece. The panel from Zlatá Koruna, almost two decades younger, is clearly linked in style to this splendid work and its author evidently quotes the work of the Master of the Vyšší Brod Altarpiece in several instances. With this assignment the Cistercians of Zlatá Koruna wished at the very least to come close to their local rivals in the field of artistic representation.
Thanks to the long developed cooperation between the National Gallery in Prague and the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou, those interested in the earliest Czech art have a unique opportunity to view the panel with the Enthroned Madonna between St Catherine and St Margaret exhibited in close proximity to the Vyšší Brod Altarpiece and thus gain some idea of the powerful impulse the latter work, by an artist who is today anonymous, was to the Czech and also the wider Central European area.
