Reception of Illustrated Prints of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Bohemian and Moravian Art: Johann Jacob von Sandrart and the Judgement of Tiresias

• Main Author: Radka Nokkala Miltová
• Format: Article
• Language: ces
• Published: Karolinum Press 2020-12-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Philologica
• Subjects: kravaře; ovid; metamorphoses; tiresias; baroque art; stucco; iconography; ancient mythology
• Online Access: http://www.karolinum.cz/doi/10.14712/24646830.2020.27

One of the major traits of Baroque art in Bohemia and Moravia is its receptive character. In the cycles thematically taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses artists often accurately followed widespread and popular illustrations. My paper focuses on rare example of reception of Metamorphoses edition published by J. J. von Sandrart in Nürnberg 1698. This edition includes several engravings depicting less frequently visualized stories that were followed in stucco decorations in the Silesian chauteau in Kravaře, irrecoverably damaged during a fire in 1937. The discovery of printed model allowed for the identification of all the iconographic motifs in Kravaře. The ceiling of the grand hall showed story about the prophet Tiresias. The article analyses visual representations of Judgement of Tiresias as well as its textual interpretations. The stucco ceiling in Kravaře was the only known monumental visual representation of this motif not only in the Central European context, but most probably in all Europe.