Noble Remnants

As a Habsburg emperor, Rudolf II was exceptionally inept. During his rule, from 1576 to 1612, he was forced to cede Hungary, Moravia, Austria and Bohemia. Yet he had vision of sorts. He was an amateur astronomer, brought Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe to the Hradcany, his imperial castle in Prague, to perfect his stargazing. Rudolf's keen eye carried over into the arts, which he collected with all the magpiety of a Renaissance nobleman worshiping beauty. It was one of the world's greatest collections, but Rudolf could not hold on to it either.

During the Thirty Years' War, the Hradcany was sacked by the Swedes, who floated bargeloads of art homeward down the Elbe. The Habsburg descendants contributed to the losses. In 1749, Empress Maria Theresa sold off 69 paintings at bargain rates. After the Habsburgs moved their imperial seat to Vienna, they removed Rudolf's collection from Prague. Between 1865 and 1894 alone, Vienna's palaces gained 312 pictures, including Cranachs, Bruegels and Bassanos. The dispersal has gone on until art from Rudolf's Schatzkammer now hangs across the world, from New York's Metropolitan to Leningrad's Hermitage.

Many times, experts have declared that Rudolf II's huge Hradcany palace was thoroughly bare. So did Czech Art Historian Jaromir Neumann, 40--at first. While studying inventories, Neumann found discrepancies suggesting that some old masters might still be lying around. And he found them--coated with dirt and varnish that has taken 22 restorers 2 1/2 years to scour off. Now these 74 noble remnants, mostly from Rudolf II's collection, are on view again, some of them back in the marble-floored stables of Prague's Hradcany (see opposite page).

These priceless oils were buried under layers of ignorance, neglect and anonymity," explains Neumann. Tintoretto's Flagellation, with all the master's mannerist mystery of depth, stage lighting and evanescent flesh tones, had been attributed to a copyist. Titian's Toilet was supposedly by his son Orazio, although the supple shoulder line and illusory intermingling of the young woman's ripply tresses with her fluid sleeve reveals the artist's lustrous trademark.

These and the other masterpieces in the Hradcany may only be the first of many new finds. The Czechoslovakian Communist government declared all of the country's 4,200 castles to be state property, and almost none have yet had their collections examined. Says Neumann eagerly: "I myself know where there are two completely authentic Van Dycks. They've simply been hanging there all these years with nobody paying any attention to them." Even in a people's republic, some good can still come from nobility.

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