Alš’s painting on glass burned down in the Industrial Palace, a photo has now been found to create a copy
Photograph of the exact form of a unique painting on glass by Mikoláš Alš. Source: Petr Šámal / MHMP
As part of the reconstruction of the Industrial Palace at the Prague Exhibition Center, its restorers managed to find, with the help of the public, a high-quality photograph of the exact form of a unique painting on glass by Mikoláš Alš, which was completely destroyed in a devastating fire in 2008. The only known photograph of the painting to date was not of sufficient quality to it was possible to create a faithful copy of a large-format painting. Thanks to the call of Deputy Mayor Pavel Vyhnánek, librarian Kateřina Richterová found out about the search and managed to find a photo by Petr Šámal taken just two weeks before the fatal fire. Vít Hofman, the spokesperson of the municipality, informed about it.
“We are extremely happy that we managed to solve the mystery of the color of this painting and obtain the photograph. If it weren’t for the help of the people of Prague, it would not be possible to return the newly emerging left wing of the Industrial Palace to its original form. Mrs. Richter and Mr. Šámal are therefore very grateful, because they helped save part of the historical value of this important monument,” said Deputy Mayor for Finance and Budget Pavel Vyhnánek (Prague Sobě), who is in charge of the Výstaviště Prague complex.
Restorers first searched for a photograph of the rare Orba painting, but without results. The search was not made easier by the fact that digital cameras were not widespread before 2008, and few photographers digitized their photos from that time. For a long time, it seemed that it would not be possible to determine the exact color of this painting. But everything changed when Kateřina Richterová from the Municipal Library in Prague read about the case in the media.
“When I learned about the search for a photo of this painting, I tried to enter its name into a search in our library system and digital library. I didn’t know if I would come across anything, but I managed to find the image and the name of its author. Fortunately, I also found a contact for him on the Internet, which I was then able to forward to the e-mail indicated in the invitation,” Richterová describes how she discovered the photo.
The author of the photograph, Petr Šámal, was a student of art history in 2008 and worked on a publication entitled Art as decoration and symbol. She deals with the decoration of Prague’s representative buildings and extensively covers the Industrial Palace as well.
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Šámal also took photos for the book, and thanks to his father being a cinematographer and professional photographer, he had access to a high-end digital camera. He collaborated on the book with his teacher Roman Prahl, and it was at his instigation that he took photos at the turn of September and October at the Prague Exhibition Center.
“Professor Prahl has the credit for the fact that there is a photograph of this painting. If it were up to me, I would probably go take pictures at the Exhibition Center sometime in the spring. Fortunately, I managed to take the photo about two weeks before the fire broke out in the entire left wing of the Industrial Palace. The photograph was created literally in five minutes and twelve,” Petr Šámal recounts.
As a reward for finding the rare photograph, Richterová and Šámal were invited to a private tour of the Industrial Palace with reconstruction architect Vladimír Thiel. When the trio met, they discovered that they had been meeting for years in the Paragenesi study room, i.e. a specialized department of the Central Library, which offers books, newspapers, magazines, plans, clippings and other interesting documents dealing with Prague for study. While Richter works here, Šámal and Thiel come here to study rare documents.
The photograph will be used to determine the exact color of the newly created painting, which was created by the restorer and artistic glassblower Zdeněk Kudláček. He also offers an original line drawing by Mikoláš Alš, which he enlarges and transfers to cardboard. Finally, he cuts it with special three-edged scissors in such a way that gaps corresponding to the lead profile, into which the individual glasses are inserted, are created at the line.
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When creating the painting, her “sister” with Industry and Science from the right wing of the palace will also serve as his model. This is currently being dismantled for cleaning and repairs, but at the same time it will help determine the colors of the border (around the main motif), the structure of the glass and especially the style of the painting itself.
“Several manuscripts can be seen on the preserved stained glass. For example, the master painted the face, the assistant the robe, and the apprentice shaded the border. This is common practice in this trade. Painting on glass is real alchemy, where you first need to apply paint and then fire it at 550 degrees Celsius. For more complex parts, such as the robe or the face, the procedure is repeated three times, while the temperature is gradually reduced so that the previous colors do not burn,” Zdeněk Kudláček explains this painting process.
While the style is the same in both paintings, the colors of the figures, such as clothing and hair or skin tones, differ. That’s why about 80 percent of the glasses will be created according to the newly discovered photograph by Mr. Šámal.