Thu, 01/27/2022 - 10:14pm

The Dog Room in Lobkowicz Palace

Tour these canine treasures amassed over centuries by Czech nobility

Lobkowicz Palace in Prague, Czech Republic, is the only privately owned building in the Prague complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built in the second half of the 16th Century by the Czech nobleman Jaroslav of Pernštejn and completed by his brother Vratislav of Pernštejn, the chancellor of the Czech Kingdom.

The palace came into the hugely influential Lobkowicz family through the marriage of Polyxena (daughter of Vratislav and his Spanish wife Maria Maximiliana Manrique de Lara y Mendoza) to Zdenĕk Vojtĕch, 1st Prince Lobkowicz. After World War I and the abolition of hereditary titles in 1918, the last Prince Lobkowicz demonstrated his support for the fledgling First Republic of Czechoslovakia.

 

 

The palace witnessed some of Bohemia’s most important historical events. In 1939, the occupying Nazi forces confiscated the palace, along with all other Lobkowicz family properties. The palace was returned in 1945, only to be seized again after the Communist takeover in 1948. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and the fall of the Communist government, President Václav Havel enacted a series of laws that allowed for the restitution of confiscated properties. Following a 12-year restitution process, the palace returned to the ownership of the Lobkowicz family, which reclaimed and reassembled one of Europe’s oldest and finest private collections and made these previously hidden treasures fully available to the public.

Highlights include world-famous paintings by Canaletto, Rubens, Velázquez and others, an unparalleled collection of musical instruments, hand-annotated works by Mozart and Beethoven, and the oldest, largest and finest private library in Central Europe, which includes a 9th-Century gospel book.

Almost every generation of the Lobkowicz family has been dog lovers since the 16th Century. The long tradition of dogs continues with “Ricky,” the current Lobkowicz family’s beloved Portuguese Water Dog. Dogs have been featured in many of the family portraits.

In what is now known as “The Dog Room” in the palace, a remarkable group of paintings recording the family’s devotion to dogs from the late 17th and early 18th centuries hangs in this room alongside other artifacts that have been accumulated over the years. There are also more portraits of dogs on display at Nelahozeves Castle, which was purchased by Polyxena.

 

 

Among the more personal family exhibits in “The Dog Room” is a selection of cabinet cards and cartes de visite of the family pets from the 18th Century. These include “Nero” sitting on his haunches puffing away on a pipe. People in the Victorian era were obsessed with the curious.

 

 

The earliest exhibit – and arguably the most important for it, recording the “taproot” of the Lobkowicz family – is the full-length portrait circa 1585 of Polyxena by the Flemish-born painter of the Spanish Renaissance, Roland de Mois. Polyxena was acknowledged for political skills and diplomacy in her own right, and together with her husband Zdenĕk, she led the Catholic/Spanish faction in Bohemia. Her close family connection with Spain may be seen in her portrait, for she wears a beautifully decorated dress in the Spanish fashion and the portrait itself makes reference to examples of the Spanish portrait school. She rests her left hand on a throne-like chair on which sleeps a lemon and white Toy Spaniel, symbolic of peace and tranquillity, the ladies comforter.

 

 

The collection is strong in paintings of the Austrian or Bohemian School. The two Pugs were painted circa 1700 and show “Asinus” on the left and “Kokrle” on the right, wearing blue and gold monogrammed collars and seated on luscious tasselled velvet cushions. The Pugs probably belonged to Count Wenzel Lobkowicz of Bílina, father-in-law of Philipp Hyacinth, 4th Prince Lobkowicz, or Anna Maria Wilhelmina Althann, 4th Princess Lobkowicz.

 

 

Also painted circa 1700 is the portrait of two dogs seated on a red cushion on a carpet-covered table. Although referred to as “Mexican Dogs” because of their markings and overall balance, I’m leaning more toward Peruvian Inca Dogs (reference Desmond Morris “Dogs: the Ultimate Dictionary of over 1,000 Dog Breeds,” 2001). Whichever, they are early examples in Europe of dogs from that part of the world.

 

 

The saying “Every picture tells a story” could first have been said for the third circa 1700 Austrian/Bohemian School picture titled “The Master of the Dogs,” which is played out against a backdrop of elaborate drapes. A man in red livery is restraining a large hound, symbolic of power and strength, wearing a suitably large, ornate leather and brass collar of the period with the initials “Z.S.,” and with a heavy chain attached. A Toy Spaniel type dog sits beneath the man. The scene could well be one from a medieval drama where man has the ultimate power and dominance. The puzzle to the picture is, where is the rear end of the large dog?

 

 

Alongside other artifacts on display is a late 19th-Century walking stick, the top in the form of a gilded metal dog’s head, and a dog collar. Made of leather with applied brass decoration and a brass lead ring attached, the collar is monogrammed “F.L.” (presumably one of the Lobkowicz family) and is of a design typically worn by large dogs owned by landed and noble families throughout Europe in the 18th Century.

 

 

Visitors to the palace can also admire the Meissen porcelain dinner service of circa 1730 in the Kakiemon style of Japanese porcelain. It was designed by the German painter and porcelain painter Johann Gregor Höroldt, who, in 1723, was appointed court painter to Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II. (He was called the Strong – not for his prowess on the battlefield, but rather in the boudoir, for he is reputed to have fathered 354 children). Höroldt was an early key figure in defining the styles of decoration for Meissen porcelain, and his decoration on this service is known as the “Flying Dog” for the crouching winged creature depicted.

 

 

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