24 February

Eliška Zlatohlávková, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague

20-minute museum presentation followed by q&a plus discussion

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc ranks among the most important art collections preserved in the Czech Republic. Its character was shaped by figures such as Bishop Carel of Liechtenstein-Castelcorno and Archbishop Theodor Kohn, who enriched it through acquisitions on the European art market. The collection adorned both representative and private spaces of the archiepiscopal residences, and its display evolved over the centuries. The paper will focus on the presentation of this collection at the Kroměříž Chateau, where two distinct approaches can still be observed today – the classical picture gallery and the so-called panel arrangement, a continuous wall decoration using paintings.

Eliška Zlatohlávková studied Art History at the Department of Art History of Charles University, Prague. She gained her PhD with a theses on the iconography of Rudolf II before starting to work at Studia Rudolphina, the Research Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II. Currently, she works as scientific researcher at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. Her main research focusses on art at the court of Rudolf II, spaces for art collections (studiolo, Kunstkammer) and princely collections of the early modern era. She is co-author of the monograph From Studiolo to Gallery, Secular Spaces for Collections in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown on the Threshold of the Early Modern Era and has written articles dealing with collection spaces and collecting in the early modern era.

24 March

kunstkammer workshop

28 April

Martina Baraldi, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich

lecture of 40 minutes followed by q&a plus discussion

The Colour of Majesty: Gems in Rudolf II’s Collection

In 1581, Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) presented a matrix of raw emeralds to Elector Augustus (1553–1586) during the latter’s visit to Prague. Later incorporated into the statue of the Moor (1725, Dresden, Grünes Gewölbe) by the sculptor Balthasar Permoser and the court jeweller Johann Melchior Dinglinger, the Emerald Cluster offers a striking example of the visual impact and symbolic authority of coloured and brilliant gems in princely collections. More than a precious object, the emeralds embody a courtly conception of gems as a vehicle of brilliance and majesty, deeply embedded in the collecting practices and visual culture of Rudolf II’s Prague, where the careful orchestration of luminous materials transformed natural substances into signs of imperial power.
The focus of this presentation is on how emerging ideas about colour and light informed the perception, display, and arrangement of objects within Rudolf II’s collection. As this paper argues, the new theories of light and non-Aristotelian colour models developed at the Prague court offer another perspective from which to address the choreographed arrangement and juxtaposition of objects within the collection itself. In this sense, the emerald matrix returns not merely as an exemplary object but as a conceptual model: as Agostino del Riccio (1541–1598) observed, the deeply green emerald not only preserves its colour under any light but intensifies it, projecting its hue into the surrounding air; an effect that, within the logic of the collection, translates material brilliance into a visible form of majesty.
By attending to the subtle tonal modulations of selected objects from Rudolf II’s collection, this presentation proposes colour and light as key analytical tools for understanding the collection as a chromatically coherent and perceptually brilliant ordered ensemble.
Martina Baraldi is a PhD candidate at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, with support by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Her doctoral research examines works of art made from inlaid stone produced in Prague for Emperor Rudolf II, with a particular focus on materials, processes of making, and modes of manufacture. Her focus is grounded in material- and object-based methodologies. Her research and ongoing publications on stones and the technique of commesso di pietre dure combine archival investigation with practical training, gained through research visits to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the University of Utrecht, and participation in international programmes and conferences exploring art and science in the early modern period.