Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The Karel Škréta exhibition, organized by the Circle of Friends of Old Masters and the Fine Arts Association in Bohemia, was part of the exhibition series held at the Rudolfinum between 1909 and 1913. These exhibitions aimed to introduce the public to works by old Czech painters. The first was dedicated to the painter Josef Navrátil (1909), the second to Škréta (1910) and the third to Petr Brandl (1911). The series concluded with the joint exhibition of Jan Kupecký and Wenzel Lorenz Reiner (1913).

In 1910, Prague celebrated the 300th anniversary of Škréta’s birth, providing a good opportunity to exhibit his works. That same year, Jaroslav Kamper published a popular monograph on Škréta for the occasion. Another significant contribution to the understanding of Škréta's life and work was the collaborative study by Pavel Bergner, inspector of the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Fine Arts (SVPU), and Jan Herain [Kamper 1910; Bergner – Herain 1910].

Pavel Bergner also authored the brief biography of Škréta that precedes the catalogue of the 1910 exhibition, compiled by Rudolf Kuchynka. Although Kuchynka’s contribution is not stated in the catalogue, it is documented by preparatory notes preserved in his estate. The concise list of exhibited works includes the subject and dimensions of each painting, its present owner and location, and, in some cases, the text of a signature or other brief notes.

The exhibition itself was divided into six sections ("halls") without any apparent organizing principle. The core of the exhibition consisted of paintings, but there were also drawings, contemporary prints made after Škréta's designs, and later graphic reproductions of Škréta's works. The first section of the exhibition also featured a mosaic with Škréta's coat of arms. This piece can be identified as the medallion, now kept in the National Gallery Prague (inv. no. O 85), bearing the coat of arms of the Šotnovský family of Závořice and executed in the pietra dura technique. Paintings that did not make it to the exhibition were represented in the final section by photographs loaned by the Prague city council. This section also included three original archival documents and a commemorative coin issued by the SVPU in 1796 with Škréta's bust on the obverse. Visitors could also explore literature about the artist here.

In total, the Rudolfinum exhibition featured 49 paintings attributed to Škréta, including two replicas (cat. nos. 17 and 53), as well as an "interesting repetition" of the Holy Family with St. Catherine and St. Barbara from the collection of the Order of the Cross. This painting was added to the exhibition after it opened. [Národní listy 1910, p. 5] Two of the exhibited paintings are listed in the catalogue as workshop pieces (cat. nos. 24 and 27) and three as copies of Škréta's works (cat. nos. 11, 13, 42). The exhibition also included a portrait of Škréta by Tiberio Tinelli, attributed in the catalogue to Alessandro Berardelli (cat. no. 8), and another portrait of the artist based on an engraving by Matthäus Merian from a private collection (cat. no. 5) [reproduced in Dolenský 1911, unpaginated].

A significant portion of the exhibited paintings, twelve pieces in total, came from the SVPU collections and had been part of the permanent exhibition of the SVPU Picture Gallery in Rudolfinum. According to its catalogue, the permanent exhibition included paintings from the Prague municipal collections, as well as the famous altarpiece from the former Church of St. Martin in the Wall, which was owned by Prince Friedrich Lobkowicz at the time. Most of the other paintings came from aristocratic collections. Prince Lobkowicz contributed the largest number of loans, providing eight paintings in addition to the St. Martin altarpiece.  Count Erwin Nostitz-Rieneck lent a considerable number of works (five pieces total) from his picture gallery in the Nostitz Palace in Prague's Lesser Town, while two paintings traveled from the picture gallery of Count Eugen Czernin in Vienna. Other lenders included Count Franz Clam-Gallas, Count Bohuslav Kolowrat-Krakovský-Libštejnský, Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein, Count Karl Buquoy, and Princess Kunigunde of Lobkowicz. Four canvases were provided by other private collectors. The exhibition catalogue names two of them: Imperial Counselor František Vejdělek and architect Arnošt Živný, both members of the Circle. A smaller portion of the exhibited paintings, twelve pieces in total, came from ecclesiastical property.

Regarding genre composition, paintings with religious subjects predominated, followed by portraits (seventeen pieces total). Most of the exhibited paintings can be identified based on the information provided in the catalogue. Today, only 33 of the exhibited paintings are considered authentic works by Škréta (cat. nos. 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16–19, 21, 22, 24–26, 29–34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 46–52, 56). Cat. nos. 11 and 13 most likely remain missing [cf. Neumann 1974, pp. 89–90]. The painting Woman before a Mirror from František Vejdělek's collection (cat. no. 20) is not mentioned in later literature [reproduced in Dolenský 1911, unpaginated].

The vast majority of the 29 exhibited drawings came from the SVPU collections, three were loaned by the Albertina in Vienna, and one by Franz Marat, Grand Master of the Order of the Cross. Škréta's authorship of some of these was later rejected (cat. nos. 1, 4, 63, 74a, 74f, 74h). The drawings listed in the catalogue as "Allegories" – likely designs for university theses – cannot be identified, and some of the others (cat. nos. 61, 64, and 70) are absent from later literature on Škréta.

The catalogue gives no details about the prints in the exhibition; it only lists their authors and provides notes about lenders. The exhibition featured engravings based on Škréta's paintings of St. Augustine (Bartholomäus Kilian) and St. Eligius (Melchior Küsel), as well as a portrait of Count Bernard Ignaz Martinicz based on Škréta's design (Jan Adriaen Gerhardt de Groos), and an engraving of a young man's head with a kerchief, executed by Václav Hollar based on Škréta's drawing (listed in the catalogue as "the first known work by Škréta"). In addition to the works of these engravers, there were pieces by Škréta's other contemporaries, such as Caspar Dooms, the Discalced Augustinian Brother Heinrich ("frater Henricus"), Philipp Kilian, Matthäus Küsel, Samuel Weishun, and Daniel Wussin. The exhibition also included later graphic reproductions of Škréta's works by Jan Jiří Balzer and Anton Birkhard.

A total of 3,587 people visited the exhibition, which also garnered significant attention from the press through both extensive reviews and shorter reports. The authors of these reviews generally recognized the exhibition as a valuable and essential step towards a future comprehensive evaluation of an artist whose historical and artistic significance they believed had been either underestimated or overestimated. Many reviewers noted the controversial German-language monograph on Škréta by Gustav Pazaurek (1889), which, despite offering an unfavorable assessment of the painter's talent, was widely regarded as an important contribution to the understanding of his work. [cf. Vácha – Vlnas 2011, pp. 38–39].

Some reviewers were bothered by a fragmentation and unevenness in the collection of exhibited works, leading to questions about the authenticity of Škréta's authorship in some paintings. Notably, works now recognized as genuine pieces by Škréta were excluded from his oeuvre, such as two paintings from the Czernin Picture Gallery in Vienna. In their overall assessment of Škréta's work, reviewers almost unanimously addressed the complex relationship between his paintings and those of other artists, usually Italian. The extent of his dependence on foreign models – sometimes emphasized and at other times downplayed – often served as a key criterion for assessing the artistic quality of his work. Critics believed Škréta's painting skills were best expressed in his portraits, especially the portrait of Ignác Jetřich Vitanovský of Vlčkovice. The paintings of the St. Wenceslas cycle, long inaccessible to the public, also received universal praise.

Occasionally, reviewers aimed their criticism at the exhibition organizers. Some of them thought the exhibition architecture did not create a suitable environment for presenting Škréta's paintings [A. M. 1910, p. 222; Marten 1910–1911, p. 62]. Karel Boromejský Mádl, who later participated in preparing the Petr Brandl exhibition and the joint Jan Kupecký and Wenzel Lorenz Reiner exhibition, was troubled by the limited attention that the catalogue devoted to Škréta's engravings. He saw them as an important aid for establishing the chronology of Škréta's work and in some cases also as the only testimony to the appearance of his lost paintings [Mádl 1910, p. 9].

From a historical perspective, Škréta's first exhibition was a milestone in the long process of understanding the place and significance of his work in the history of Baroque painting in Bohemia. In this period, scholarly research into the art of 17th and 18th centuries was just beginning. The second Škréta exhibition, focusing exclusively on his painterly work, took place at the Collection of Old Masters of SVPU in 1938. Its curator, Vincenc Kramář, critically evaluated and revised the attributions made by the organizers of the 1910 exhibition [Kramář 1938, here pp. 3–4]. To their credit, it should be noted that the second exhibition was – after necessary reduction – essentially a repetition of the first Škréta show.

Tadeáš Kadlec

Works Cited

Bergner – Herain 1910: Pavel Bergner – Jan Herain, Karel Škréta. Příspěvek k ocenění jeho díla, Praha 1910

Dolenský 1911: Antonín Dolenský, Výbor obrazů Karla Škréty, Nymburk 1911

Kamper 1910: Jaroslav Kamper, Karel Škréta. List z dějin českého umění, Praha 1910

Kramář 1938: Vincenc Kramář, Výstava obrazů Karla Škréty, Praha 1938

A. M. 1910: A. M., Výstavy retrospektivní a starých památek, Dílo 8, 1910, p. 222

Mádl 1910: Karel Boromejský Mádl, Ke Škrétově výstavě, Národní listy 50, 1910, no. 257, 18. 9., p. 9

Marten 1910–1911: Miloš Marten, Výtvarné umění, Moderní revue 17, 1910–1911, no. 22, pp. 62–64

Neumann 1974: Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974

Pazaurek 1889: Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610-1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVll. Jahrhunderts, Prag 1889

Vácha – Vlnas 2010: Štěpán Vácha – Vít Vlnas, Baroko v Čechách versus české baroko, aneb Karel Škréta a raně barokní malířství očima dějepisu umění, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Studie a dokumenty, Praha 2010, pp. 33–50

Výstava 1910: Anonym, Výstava děl Karla Škréty v Rudolfinu, Národní listy 50, no. 282, 13. 10. 1910, p. 5

Further Reading

Lubor Machytka, Svatý Václav v pozdním díle Karla Škréty, Umění 29, 1981, pp. 506–528

Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000

Vít Vlnas – Lenka Stolárová (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010

Petra Zelenková (ed.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 a univerzitní teze v českých zemích, Praha 2023

Archival Sources

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota [Fine Arts Association] (1842–1939), file no. 94, Výstava Karla Škréty [Exhibition of Karel Škréta], 1910

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Společnost vlasteneckých přátel umění [Society of Patriotic Friends of Fine Arts] (1796–1953), file no. 42, Krasoumná jednota, Doklady k výstavám [Fine Arts Association, Exhibition Documentation] (1851–1930)

Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Science, Department of Documentation, fonds Rudolf Kuchynka (1869–1923), file no. 3, inv. nos. 84–118

Edvard Bém, Výstava Karla Škréty v Rudolfině, Venkov V, 1910, no. 229, 29. 9., p. 9

Karel Vladimír Herain, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Zavořic, České slovo IV, 1910, no. 242, 23. 10., pp. 17–18

Kch., Škrétova výstava v Praze. Diecesní museum v Českých Budějovicích, Našinec XLVI, 1910, no. 224, n. pag.

Karel Boromejský Mádl, Ke Škrétově výstavě, Národní listy L, 1910, no. 257, 18. 9., p. 9