Architectural graphics from the collections of the Archbishop's Castle in Kroměříž

October 16, 2025 – January 2026 / Gallery
Olomouc Archdiocesan Museum
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Ancient Mausoleum, 1743, etching, 356 x 254 mm, 3rd sheet from the album Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive (First part of architectures and perspectives).
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Ancient Mausoleum, 1743
Representation of architecture in graphic art from the 16th to the 19th century will be presented in the Archdiocesan Museum in an exhibition from the collections of the Archbishopric of Olomouc.

The technological improvement of graphic techniques at the beginning of the 16th century also started the use of this medium in the representation of architecture. The Renaissance revived the principles of ancient architectural orders, which became the basis of modern architecture, and printmaking, whose main asset is the possibility of replicating the image, was an effective tool for disseminating and communicating architectural canons and forms.

“Very soon, the repertoire of architectural prints was also enriched by vedutas, followed by albums dedicated to urban settlements and individual buildings, including, for example, garden architecture and interior furnishings,” says curator Helena Zápalková. “Among the most important exhibits that visitors will see are richly illustrated albums by Baroque architects Paul Decker, Johann Bernhard Fischer of Erlach and Salomon Kleiner, sets of views of ancient monuments and contemporary Baroque Italian architecture and gardens by Giovanni Battista Falda, and works by one of the most original Italian printmakers of the 18th century, Giovanni Battista Piranesi.”


The exhibition is part of the NAKI III project (DH23P03OVV015): ‘Friedrich Cardinal von Fürstenberg – the last aristocrat on the throne of the Olomouc archbishops’, provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.


Various architectural treatises and theoretical writings of the architects themselves were illustrated through graphics, and contemporary and past buildings were documented. “Especially in the Baroque period, casual and ephemeral architecture also became popular, and designs for ideal buildings, so-called capriccio, emerged from sheer imagination and creativity,” adds Helena Zápalková.

The exhibition will present selected works from the collections of the Archbishopric of Olomouc kept at the Kromeriz castle, which illustrate basically all of the above-mentioned positions of depicting architecture in graphic art from the 16th to the 19th century. In addition to the aforementioned authors, the collection also includes a high quality production of prints from the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Historicism periods, focusing mainly on vedute and garden architecture, but also ideal designs and architectural models.

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