A show presenting an artwork alongside a model of its “exhibition hall,” is a unique occurrence in European exhibition history. In Bohemia, such an undertaking took place in Prague in July/August 1847, initiated by the art patron and entrepreneur Anton Veith (1793-1853) as part of his plan to build the national Pantheon.
Veith surrounded himself with members of the Czech-German social elite, such as František Palacký, František Matouš Klácel, Bernard Bolzano, Jan Erazim Wocel, and his circle also included renowned, emerging, and now forgotten artists (Antonín Machek, Ludwig Schwanthaler, Josef Navrátil, Václav Levý, Hoffmann). Between 1839 and 1848, Veith envisioned a landscape park carrying a cryptic political message, represented by a philosopher’s study, the Blaník Hill (a place featured in Czech-German mythology), and gigantic rock sculptures of grinning heads. In Veith’s plans, the walk through the park would end/begin with a visit to the Hall of Fame, in German Ruhmeshalle or Walhalla, standing on a hill above the valley. Veith’s Czech contemporaries named it Slavín, a reference to the word glory (sláva) and the Slavs. The interior of the Hall of Fame was to house 12 (elsewhere 17 or 21) statues of “scholars, pagans and statesmen after the models of the famous L. Schwanthaler” [R-t, 1843]. The philosophical interpretation of this Romantic park, its financial cost, and the emerging idea of a political nation of Bohemians and Moravians put Veith under much pressure from both the supporters and opponents of the Hall of Fame even before the revolutionary year of 1848. After the revolution, Slavín remained incomplete. The idea of its sculptural decoration resurfaced in 1867-1868 in connection with the Czech Pantheon in the building of the National Museum in Prague. In 1867, the political situation around the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was conducive to the idea that the sculptures “should become national property, and so they should stand in a universally accessible place, where they would act as both a national monument and as works of art" [Anonymous author 1867]. A series of articles published in the tense atmosphere of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise failed to mention the sculpture of the Czech and Roman King Přemysl Otakar I, even though it was the first of the Slavín sculptures to have been created. All eight sculptures were later placed in the museum (albeit not in the Pantheon), which opened on May 18, 1891.
Anton Veith presented the statue of Přemysl Otakar I (German: Otokar II) to the public in his Prague apartment near the Karolinum building of Prague University, which served as a space for public exhibitions. In his decision to begin the series with the medieval king, he likely aimed to commemorate the period of political and economic flourishing in the high Middle Ages. All the sculptures were cast in the Munich foundry of Ferdinand von Miller. In addition to Přemysl Otakar I (1847), only the statue of Libuše (1848) and George of Poděbrady (1850) were exhibited in Veith’s lifetime. Miller sent them at his own expense to the 1851 World Fair in London as a technical demonstration of “cast bronze with a chiselled finish exemplifying the effects of the art of chiselling with a matt finish” [Official ... catalogue, 1851]. The organizers placed the sculptures in the Bavaria section of the German Customs Union. The statue of Arnošt of Pardubice (1863) drew criticism from the theorist and painter Karel Purkyně. Its artistic form and the placement in the cramped space of the National Museum’s provisional exhibition hall in the Nostic Palace on Na Příkopě Street made a lifeless impression on him: “The figure of the bishop is good enough, but we do not like the face, it is too hard, too rigid, and has too much metal in it. The drapery does not lie naturally, and the broad cloak looks like it hangs on a pin. But if the statue had stood in a better light ... the impression would have been different ..." [Purkyně, 1863] The other surviving sculptures of Schwanthaler’s series – Elizabeth of Bohemia (1847), Přemysl the Ploughman (1851), Bohuslav Hasištejnský (1867), and St. Wenceslaus (1867) – were likely first exhibited after the opening of the National Museum building on Wenceslaus Square and drew hardly any response from the public.
In contrast, the exhibition of the first sculpture from Veith’s Hall of Fame did attract the attention of reviewers from Prague’s German-language periodicals. In Bohemia, an unknown author emphasized the statue’s calm grandeur in a clear allusion to Winckelmann’s criteria for evaluating antiquity, “edle Einfalt - stille Grösse” [Winckelmann 1986], and praised the successful sculptural representation of the king’s regal and military skills. The allusion to the former skills appears in the Latin inscription on the scroll in the king’s left hand, which says: “In the strength of cities lies the permanence and peace of the kingdom.” The sword in the king’s right hand represents his military might. The runic writing on the tree trunk behind the king was also a historical allusion, referring to Otokar’s Christian mission to pagan Prussia. According to the author, the statue embodied “true royal dignity” [Anonymous author 1847]. Another review came out in the culture supplement Prag of the magazine Ost und West, likely penned by its editor, Rudolf Glaser. In addition to the emphasis on the founding of cities and the runic name of the pagan thunder god Perun on the tree trunk, the author commented on the artistic form of Schwanthaler’s sculptures, which drew on the sculptures “behind the high altar in St. Vitus Cathedral,” i.e., the medieval tombstones by Peter Parler. This inspiration, says the reviewer, explains the “truly Slavic type” of the king’s face [RG. 1847]. Surprisingly, none of the critics mentioned Schwanthaler’s twelve models of Bavarian Wittelsbachs for the Munich Throne Hall, exhibited at the Prague show of the Krasoumná jednota in 1841, neither did they discuss the series of twelve Bohemian rulers by Josef Max featured at Krasoumná jednota’s regular spring exhibition in 1843. The sculptural model of the Hall of Fame, designed in the “Moorish style,” was created by German printmaker Wilhelm Gail, who had caught Veith's attention in 1839, when he presented sketches from Spain at the exhibition of the Krasoumná jednota in Prague. These sketches served as the 1837 premium of the Munich Kunstverein, which contributed to their popularity. Based on the preserved plaster model and floor-plan sketch, the Hall of Fame was designed as a four-wing compound with a polygonal entrance tower featuring a viewing deck, and three consecutive halls. According to the sketch, the statues of Přemysl Otakar I together with Adalbert, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles IV, Arnošt of Pardubice, George of Poděbrady (left), Methodius, Jaroslav, Kosmas, John Hus, Jan Žižka and John Amos Comenius (right) were intended for the polygonal main hall with a large viewing window. Roman Prahl dates the sketch to the autumn of 1845.
This exhibition is among the most significant shows organized by private art supporters in the 1840s when Czech cultural life gained new strength under the influence of the Munich milieu.
Taťána Petrasová
Anonymous author 1847: Anonymous author, Schwanthaler’s Otakar II., Bohemie. Unterhaltungsblatt XX, 1847, no. 102, 27. 6., [p. 4]
Anonymous author 1867: Anonymous author, Sochy Veithova českého „Slavína“, Květy II, 1867, no. 20, 14. 11., p. 165 (image), 166–167 (text)
Official ... catalogue, 1851: Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue: Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, vol. 3, London 1851, p. 1102, Pl. 140
Purkyně 1863: Karel Purkyně, Socha arcibiskupa Arnošta z Pardubic, Národní listy. Kritická příloha, November 1863, no. 1, p. 19
RG 1847: RG 1847 [Rudolf Glaser], Schwanthaler’s Otakar II., Ost und West. Blätter für Kunst, Literatur und geselliges Leben XI, 1847, no. 78, 1. 7., p. 312
R-t 1843: R-t [Johann Erazim Wocel?], Liboch, Ost und West, příloha Prag VII, 1843, no. 117, 24. 7., pp. 466–467; no. 118, 26. 7., p. 470
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Sz [Szalatnay], Antonín Veith a jeho český Slavín, Světozor VIII, 1907–1908, no. 33, pp. 782–784
Anonymous author, Schwanthaler’s Otakar II., Bohemie. Unterhaltungsblatt XX, 1847, no. 102, 27. 6., [p. 4]
pngRG [Rudolf Glaser], Schwanthaler’s Otakar II., Ost und West. Blätter für Kunst, Literatur und geselliges Leben XI, 1847, no. 78, 1. 7., p. 312
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