National Museum – Lapidary by Karel Stolar - Prague, Czech Republic
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National Museum – Lapidary // Národní muzeum – Lapidárium
Waymark Code: WM11WP2
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 12/30/2019
Views: 13
Lapidarium is a building with the largest specialized collection of the Czech, mostly stone sculpture since the Middle Age in the 11th century until the 19th century. The name Lapidarium is derived from the Latin word “lapis” that means a stone. This name has been established as a designation of a collection of stone sculptures and architectural elements of both, the Middle Age and modern times. Either these artworks had been already used and must have been moved for various reasons from their original places, or they had been damaged so badly that they were replaced with copies and the originals were deposited. Lapidaries are also in other cities, e.g. Regensburg, Vienna, the Cluny Monastery in French etc.
The idea of establishing the lapidarium within the National Museum dates back to the first-third of the 19th century. One of the founders of the museum, Count Kolovrat-Libštejnský, requested an establishment of the drafts collection of the urban architectural sights, sculptural groups, plastic art, epitaphs and other things. Subsequently, František Palacký wanted to collect large and heavy monuments with historical themes in 1841.
A pavilion called Lapidarium at Prague exhibition grounds known as Výstavište was built as a seasonal provisional measure by Prague architect Antonín Wiehl for the National Jubilee Exhibition in 1891. The master builder of the Neo-Renaissance building was Quido Belský. From all the then exhibits, only the oldest ones can be seen there: the clay tiles from Vyšehrad. The basis of today’s Lapidarium was collected in 1898 during the important Exhibition on architecture and engineering. The construction of the pavilion was finished and rebuilt for this exhibition. It was done in a Baroque-like Art Nouveau style by architect Antonín Hrubý. Other exhibits were continually added to the ones of this exhibition, especially from the houses demolished during the redevelopment of the old Prague at the turn of the century. Therefore in 1905 a permanent exposition of Lapidarium was opened to the public. Jan Koula and Václav Fabián contributed to it in the first place. A part of the exposition was also the Langweil model of Prague, which the National Museum later donated to the city.
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The author of this painting is Karel Stolar. Karel Stolar is the book illustrator who is dedicated to creating drawings sights. You can find this painting in book 'Pražské domy vyprávejí - IV'.
This book is one of a twelve-part series of books describing structural changes and the development of cultural-historical monuments of Prague (houses, villas and palaces, library, banks, school, museum, hospital, farm, etc.).