Name of Object:

Diligence / Diligentia

Also known as:

Industriousness

Location:

State District Archive, Olomouc, Moravia, Czech Republic

Holding Museum:

State District Archive, Olomouc

Current Owner:

State District Archive, Olomouc

Date of Object:

1746

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Jan Kryštof Handke (1694, Janovice u Rýmařova-1774, Olomouc)

Museum Inventory Number:

XXXII/26

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Dark-brown pen with green and red water colour on brownish paper

Dimensions:

H: 21.5 cm; w: 13.3 cm

Provenance:

Olomouc Town Hall

Type of object:

Drawing

Place of production:

Olomouc

Description:

The drawing is plan-sketch for the side walls of a niche for the Olomouc Town Hall astronomical clock, a tower clock with several chronological devices and pictorial symbolism. It depicts Diligence or Industriousness and Punctuality. Her attributes include a spider spinning a web, an hourglass, a cockerel pecking grain and the placement of the female figure in a cave. One interesting detail is a spur held by the woman: even Diligence needs to be pricked. The motifs are derived from Cesare Ripa's Iconology, the most widespread pictorial manual of the period.
Plan-sketches included a detailed description of the clock, respecting the original 15th-century plan. The decoration, with allegorical scenes of the Seven Liberal Arts, had a markedly secular character. Other scenes comprised Grammar, Mechanics, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Philosophy, Dialectics, Music and Geometry portrayed as female figures with various attributes, supplemented by the figures of the Mathematician, the Astronomer, Apollo, with a Muse, and Pegasus. The series of drawings for the unpreserved parts of the Olomouc clock is one of the highlights of the work of Jan Kryštof Handke, a leading Olomouc artist. He created easel and ceiling paintings in central and north Moravia and east Bohemia. Handke's most important work is the fresco in the auditorium of the Jesuit university in Wroclaw. The Prague astronomical clock and the Olomouc clock are the only ones of their kind preserved in the Czech Republic. As part of the town hall, it demonstrates the significance of Olomouc as the seat of the bishopric and a one-time centre of Moravia. The original appearance of the clock is not preserved, the present one is in the style of Socialist Realismus made in the 1950s by Karel Svolinský.

The drawing is one of the plan-sketches for the painted decoration of the Olomouc astronomical clock. The allegorical scenes, with the Seven Liberal Arts, had a markedly secular character, demonstrating the significance of Olomouc as the seat of the bishopric and a one-time centre of Moravia.

How date and origin were established:

The town council assigned the painted decoration of the restored town hall clock to the Kryštof Handke workshop in 1746; it was executed in the following year. Handke also mentioned the series of 12 planning sketches for the astronomical clock, and their realisation, in his biography.

How Object was obtained:

Until the end of the 19th century the drawing was deposited in Olomouc Town Hall. Around 1900 it was found in the German Museum from whence it passed to the municipal archive and later to the district archive.

Selected bibliography:

Autobiografie moravského malíře Jana Kryštofa Handkeho, 1766, Brno, Moravský zemský archiv, fond G 12, sign. Cerroni II, inv. 180.
Milan Togner, Jan Kryštof Handke – malířské dílo, Olomouc, 1994, cat. 30–40.
Milan Togner, in Jiří Kroupa (ed), Dans le miroir des ombres. La Moravie a la age baroque 1760–1790, Brno–Paris–Rennes, 2002, cat. 66d, pp. 193–194.
Miloslav Čermák, Olomoucký orloj – Memoria, Olomouc, 2005.

Citation of this web page:

Zora Wörgötter "Diligence / Diligentia" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;cz;Mus11_F;26;en

Prepared by: Zora WörgötterZora Wörgötter

SURNAME: Wörgötter
NAME: Zora

AFFILIATION: Moravian Gallery in Brno

TITLE: Museum Curator and Local Co-ordinator

CV:
Zora Wörgötter studied Applied Painting at the Secondary School of Applied Arts, Video Art (Faculty of Fine Arts) at the University of Technology in Brno and Art History and Ethnology (Faculty of Arts) at Masaryk University, Brno. She has worked at the Moravian Gallery since 1997 and was curator of the Ancient Art Collection up until 2008. Specialising in Dutch and Central European painting of the 17th and 18th centuries, she has participated in the preparation of several exhibitions, catalogues and research projects in the Czech Republic and abroad, and published in the Moravian Gallery Bulletin, Opuscula historiae artium, and other journals. She is co-ordinator of the Art History Database www.ahice.net for the Czech Republic.
Copyedited by: Jiří KroupaJiří Kroupa

SURNAME: Kroupa
NAME: Jiří

AFFILIATION: Department of the History of Art (Faculty of Arts) Masaryk
University, Brno

TITLE: Professor

CV:
Professor Jiří Kroupa studied Art History, History and Sociology Masaryk University, Brno. He was a curator at the Kroměříž Museum and the Moravian Gallery in Brno before joining the staff at Masaryk University in 1988 (Head of the Department 1992–2002; Professor 1999 to present). His particular fields of interest are in the history of architecture, 18th-century cultural history and the methodology of art history. His long list of publications includes an edition on the architect Franz Anton Grimm and an essay “The alchemy of happiness: the Enlightenment in the Moravian context”. He was contributing editor for the volume Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670–1790 (2002).
Translation by: Irma Charvátová
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: CZ 27