Count Paar as Neptune
Budišov State Chateau, Moravia, Czech Republic
Budišov State Chateau
Count Josef Ignaz Paar
Budišov State Chateau
1740–1750
Anton Joseph Prenner (1683, Wallerstein-1761, Vienna)
Oil on canvas
H: 180 cm; w: 210 cm
Budišov Chateau
Painting
Vienna
Count Josef Ignaz Paar, High Steward of Emperor Joseph I and curator of the Vienna-Academy, and his wife, Marie Anna of Valdštejn, the empress's lady-in-waiting, initiated the transformation of the Renaissance chateau in Budišov into a spectacular mansion in 1715. Only a few of the rooms with their Baroque interiors have survived: the sala terrena with chinoiseries and the Ancient (Golden) Room on the second floor, decorated with grotesque paintings and featuring scenes from the lives of ancient gods that also personify the elements. Crypto-portraits in the room beside it crown the elaborate decoration of the chateau, a typical example of the residences of court nobility at the time. The ground floor features hunting scenes with the god, Zeus, conveying the fate of the interconnection between earthly pleasures and tribulations. The paintings on the first floor depict the course of the world through the changing seasons, while on the second floor there are pictures from the lives of the high gods. The second large painting shows the countess Paar as Amfitríté. The Triptychon illustrate the Devise “Omnia vincit amor” – that love wins over all – and originally they decorated the wedding room, now known as “the room of elements”.
Only a fragment of Prenner's, the court painter of Maria Theresa, work has survived. Walter Xaver of Dietrichstein commissioned him with the restoration of the Mikulov chateau; Prenner was also his artistic advisor. The artist worked for Jan Adam Questenberk (Rapoltenkirchen, Jaroměřice nad Rokytnou). As director of the Vienna court art collections, he captured their treasures in a series of engravings, Theatrum artis poctoriae and Prodromus.
Crypto-portraits of the counts in the room crown the elaborate decoration of the chateau, an example typical of the residences of court nobility at the time. Count Paar was a High Steward of Emperor Joseph I and curator of the Vienna-Academy. Only a fragment of Prenner’s work, the count painter, has survived.
The authorship, mentioned in older literature, was confirmed by a find of the Prenner 1721 signature on newly revealed paintings in the Budišov Church.
The painting is what remains of the original Baroque interior in “the Room of Elements” (probably a wedding room) at Budišov Chateau, a relatively low-key town off the beaten track in the Czech-Moravian Highlands.
August Prokop, Die Markgrafschaft Mähren in kunstgeschichtlichen Beziehungen, Wien, 1904, p. 1300.
Marie Mžyková, Na okraj kryptoportrétů Paarů na zámku v Budišově, Cour d´honneur 3, 1998, pp. 49–51.
Petr Czajkowski, Malířská výzdoba v kostele a zámku v Budišově u Třebíče (na okraj činnosti malířů J. Drentwetta a J. A. Prennera v první třetině 18. století na Moravě), Zprávy památkového ústavu v Brně, 3, 1999, pp. 85–97.
Zora Wörgötter "Count Paar as Neptune" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;cz;Mus11_A;28;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 29
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