Exhibition about the Baroque architect Fischer von Erlach

Prague - An exhibition titled Clam-Gallas Palace and Johann Bernhard Fischer from Erlach will open to the public on Friday at the Clam-Gallas Palace in Prague and will last until January 27. For the first time in Czech history, it maps the artistic decoration, the history of the building, and the personality of the significant Baroque architect Fischer from Erlach as well as the noble families of Gallas and Clam-Gallas. The exhibition includes newly discovered original plans and drawings by Fischer, said the curator of the exhibition Martin Krummholz from the Archive of the Capital City of Prague at today's press conference.
"I discovered the plans locked in a hard-to-access cabinet a year ago, and they have surely been here for several decades. Among them are four large-format designs for representative spaces and staircases," Krummholz stated. According to him, these are invaluable materials for experts that document the construction history of the palace and the work of the architect.
Visitors to this significant Baroque building in Prague will be able to familiarize themselves with more than 300 exhibits in four thematic sections, which come from both the Czech Republic and abroad, and most of them have not been exhibited before. They include archival materials, portraits, personal items of the noble family, sculptures, and musical scores. The authors also utilized the authentic environment of the building with extensive Baroque external and internal decoration. Attention was also paid to the cultural life in the palace at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries when a noble theater operated there.
"The exhibition about a palace, which is among the most interesting buildings of Central European Baroque, has no equivalent even in neighboring countries. Interest in the building has always been on the margins in the Czech Republic, and no one has yet explored the fates of the Gallas and Clam-Gallas families in depth," Krummholz pointed out. According to him, Fischer influenced the interpretation of Baroque art in Germany and Austria.
The architect of the High Baroque, Fischer from Erlach, worked throughout Central Europe and at the Vienna court. He is, among other things, the author of the church in Salzburg, the summer palace in Schönbrunn, and the Vienna Schwarzenberg and Winter Palaces.
The exhibition also features archival materials of General and Count Jan Matyáš Gallas, who participated in the Thirty Years' War and was one of the masterminds behind the assassination of Albrecht von Wallenstein. "Essentially, it is a complementary presentation to the Wallenstein exhibition," added Krummholz.