If someone tells you this in Prague, you’re sure to know instantly which horse they mean. The monumental statue of St. Wenceslas on Wenceslas Square has been and will continue to be a witness to historic national events, friendly meetings and romantic trysts.
When Josef Václav Myslbek (1848–1922) was born 165 years ago, his dad already had a clear idea of his son’s career – he’d be a cobbler! However, the young man fled the workbench to the sculpture studio of Václav Levý, and is now seen as the founder of modern Czech sculpture. Every schoolchild knows the name Myslbek thanks to his most prominent work, the statues on Wenceslas Square. In order to provide for his large family (he and his wife had eight children in all), he worked a lot, often on several commissions at the same time. This is why his monumental sculptures as well as his beautiful portrait work can be seen relatively often. Four of his large sculptures, originally intended for Palacky Bridge, were moved to Vyšehrad; the foyer of the National Theatre is adorned by, amongst others, a bust of Bedřich Smetana, while the side door of the facade features sculptures entitled “Zpěvohra” (“Operetta”) and “Činohra” (“Drama”); in St. Vitus Cathedral we can find Myslbek’s tombstone for Cardinal Bedřich Schwarzenberg, and the memorial to Karel Hynek Mácha on Petřín has long been a legend. His most important work outside Prague is the statue of Bishop Jan Valerián Jirsík by the Black Tower in České Budějovice. Josef Václav Myslbek died a year before the completion of the statues on Wenceslas, yet he still lived to see the statue of St. Wenceslas become a national symbol.
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Nesouhlas se zpracováním Vašich osobních údajů byl zaznamenán.
Váš záznam bude z databáze Vydavatelstvím KAM po Česku s.r.o. vymazán neprodleně, nejpozději však v zákonné lhůtě.
