The Prague Castle Administration has prepared a new exhibition called Windows of the St. Vitus Cathedral, which will present the craftsmanship of breathtaking stained glass windows in large-format photographs. Visitors will thus be able to view in detail what can only be perceived from afar in the cathedral. They can see it in the premises of the Císařská kónirna from September 22 to December 31, 2023.
“The exhibition shows a wealth of subjects, different artistic styles and different artistic techniques, e.g. a mosaic made of colored glass or painting on glass. Each of the windows is presented with a picture of the whole and photographs of selected details that the visitor cannot see from a normal point of view,” said the author of the exhibition, Petr Chotěbor. “Some windows had interesting fates – for example, the oldest realized fillings were replaced by others after thirty years, and the original ones found use in another church. The exhibition also shows medieval and modern stone tracery windows and examples of their sculptural decoration. The visitor has a unique opportunity to look into the process of creating stained glass windows and their restoration,” added Chotěbor.
Important loans at the exhibition include original stained glass windows from the 14th century from the property of the Metropolitan Chapter at St. Welcome to Prague, as well as a design for a stained-glass window for a rosette in the west facade of the church with the motif of the Creation of the World by František Kysela, which was lent by the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague, and a number of original architectural and artistic designs for the cathedral’s windows from the Prague Castle Archive. Important exhibits are also the artistic designs according to which the stained glass windows were realized.
All the stained glass windows, with one exception (windows in the chapel of St. Wenceslas) come from the era of Unity for the completion of the main church of St. Welcome to Prague Castle, as was the full name of the association that financed repairs and the entire completion of the cathedral. The set of stained glass was created gradually over a period of approximately one hundred years (1865-1969). Their implementation was made possible by generous financial donations from insurance companies, savings banks or other institutions and a whole range of individuals; there were even donors who did not want to be named. Artistic designs were ordered from a number of authors, among whom were well-known artists (e.g. František Kysela, Max Švabinský, Karel Svolinský, Cyril Bouda, Alfons Mucha). The first two modern cathedral builders, Josef Kranner and Josef Mocker, also took part in some of the designs. The oldest surviving windows were made by Jan Zachariaš Quast, after which production was entrusted to the Tyrolean Glassworks for Stained Glass and Cathedral Glass in Innsbruck for more than thirty years, as no glassworks capable of producing the necessary colored glass could be found in Bohemia. This changed in the period of the First Republic, when the window glazing was carried out by the domestic companies of Jan Jaroš, Josef Vlasák, Josef Jiřička and Jan Veselý.
Among the windows of the St. Vitus Cathedral are the oldest stained glass windows, namely in the windows of the chapel of St. Anthony the Hermit (St. John the Baptist). The youngest stained glass windows are in the windows of the chapel of St. Wenceslas, where both south windows are filled with an abstract composition of metallurgical glass designed by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová. The most striking stained glass window (rosette) can be found in the window of the west facade and represents the Creation of the World according to František Kysela’s design. The most striking is the stained glass window in the chapel in Horov, whose composition on the theme of the celebration of the Slavic Annunciations and the central scene of the baptism of Prince Bořivoj was created by Alfons Mucha. The largest stained glass window has a window in the front of the transverse wall, the design for the theme of the Last Judgment was created by Max Švabinský.
Windows of St. Vitus Cathedral
Imperial Stables of Prague Castle
22 September – 31 December 2023
open daily 10am-6pm
Basic entrance fee: CZK 140
Reduced entrance fee: CZK 60
Family entrance fee: CZK 280
The exhibition is organized by the Prague Castle Administration.