Prague Castle Picture Gallery

A smallish picture gallery, some 5-7 rooms. Contains paintings by several world renown artists, such as Rubens and Tintoretto. Also a good portion of paintings by medieval flemish masters and lots of somewhat less famous Italian artists. Definitely worth visiting!

Prague Castle Picture Gallery – Beneath the Spanish Hall This gallery is easy to miss, but richly rewarding. It sits beneath the Spanish Hall in Prague Castle’s second courtyard - in what were once the stables - now an atmospheric series of vaulted red rooms with parquet floors. Access is via the north wing, just past the security check. The collection is compact, with a considered focus on late Renaissance and Baroque painting. It opens with Joos van Cleve’s Adoration of the Magi, a triptych of opulence and ornament: eastern silks, silver goblets, and finely dressed Magi - including one darker-skinned king, rendered with particular attention. Antwerp Mannerists favoured this theme, as it allowed them to flaunt their skill with textiles and texture. The donor’s family appear in the flanking panels, watched over by Saint Jerome and Saint Lucy. From lavishness to severity: The Flagellation of Christ by Tintoretto (1555) offers a jolt of angled limbs and muscular tension. Tintoretto’s loose, expressive brushwork draws the eye toward the violence of the moment - a painterly study in diagonals and narrative force. By contrast, Saint Peter by Johann Rudolf Byss is a more intimate affair. Painted around 1710, the figure’s clasped hands and parted lips seem to suggest speech or prayer, and his features show a northern influence - Byss, active in Prague, was instrumental in blending Italian and Central European styles. One of the most moving pieces is Pietà with Saint Francis and an Angel (1642) by Fra Semplice da Verona, a Capuchin friar whose work was long misattributed to more famous contemporaries. The composition is dense, sculptural, and emotionally compressed - a devotional work with real gravity. Saint Francis appears frequently in Semplice’s paintings, not surprisingly given the artist’s own monastic background. The visit closes with theatrical scale: Assembly of the Gods on Mount Olympus by Peter Paul Rubens. A swirling mass of drapery, bronzed bodies, and heavenly unrest fills the canvas - thought to represent a quarrel between Venus and Juno. One of the gallery’s overhead lamps was out on my visit; though I wondered if the slightly dimmed illumination was part of the mise en scène.

It was a nice exhibition. Nothing special or uncommon. A gallery with many portraits of saints and monarchs, paintings from religious texts etc. Wort a visit especially if you buy one of the tickets that includes this exhibition as well.

It's a nice gallery, with some great works and some other ok ones. The great are very great so its worth it, but it is really small. If you're super throrough you will not do more than 3 hs, so anyone else can fo it in less than 1. For the ammount you're seeing and comñaring to other museums/galleries in Prague, a bit expensive.

Overpriced very small gallery with poorly chosen bad lighted paintings. Better go to National Gallery in Prague. They lure you with big painters names in the advertisement and there is only like one painting of each of these painters. Holbein painting is hidden in shadow without even a proper lighting. For this price they could already at least provide a proper presentation of what they have. I don’t recommend!