Collection of Artistic Crafts

The collection of artistic crafts has also been marked by the numerous calamities that the monastery has experienced throughout its history. After being plundered by Swedish troops in 1648 and bombarded in 1742, the collection suffered from state confiscations of precious metals during the Austrian wars with France in the early 19th century. Most notably, however, was the clearing out of the monastery in 1950 during “Operation K,” when nearly all furniture, glass, ceramics, numerous dining services, textiles, and small everyday items were removed. Most liturgical items and reliquaries were not spared either.

The collections of artistic crafts contain valuable artifacts of both liturgical treasures and objects of everyday use.

Characteristics of the Collection of Artistic Crafts

The collection contains several dozen pieces of historical furniture, including several historical clocks. From the formerly rich collection of glass and ceramics, approximately three hundred items were returned to the monastery after restitution. There is also a collection of two hundred and fifty pieces of pewter tableware, used in the monks' refectories.

The oldest goldsmith items are two large reliquary plates from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries from the Benedictine monastery at St. George's at Prague Castle. The creation of most other precious metal items falls mainly into the 17th to 19th centuries, with the majority being the work of Prague or Augsburg goldsmiths.

The textile sub-collection exhibits were intended for liturgical purposes, primarily as priestly vestments or for altar decorations, festivals, and processions. The collection includes Baroque sets made, among others, in the embroidery workshops of the Doksany Premonstratensian monastery, as well as imported textiles, mostly of French and Italian origin from the 17th to 18th centuries. Numerous textile products from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were made in the workshops of the Christian Academy. The collection also includes examples of historical abbatial pontificals. After 1990, private collections of two patrons - JUDr. Jaromír Stach (1948–2011) and Jaroslava Ossendorfová (1914–2005) - were added to the restituted applied art items.

Photogallery

Monstrance with God the Father (detail); Richard Fleischmann; Prague 1781

Medal of Abbot Jerome J. Zeidler for the erection of the statue of St. Norbert on Charles Bridge; Václav Seidan, 1853

Pyx, Egino Weinert, Cologne on the Rhine, 1990s

Chalice with scenes of the Passion of Jesus Christ and the murder of St. Wenceslaus; Prague, post-1700; gilded silver, garnets, enamels; inventory no. 826

Johann Christoph Laminet, Abbatial crozier from the former Heiligen Kreuz monastery in Donauwörth, Augsburg, 1722

Cup and saucer, Vienna, 1800

Carafe with stopper and the coat of arms of the Strahov abbot Daller, 1760s – 1770s

Jean-Charles Cahier (1772 Paris – 1849 there), Chalice, Paris, 1809 – 1819

Pontifical slipper of the Strahov abbot, early 19th century

Coronation of the Virgin Mary by Jesus, detail of the relief decoration of a reliquary originally from the Benedictine monastery of St. George at Prague Castle; Pomází 1280-1300

Chalice with Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Norbert; Prague, post-1700

Chalice with the inscription JESUS; Jan Tengler, Prague 1885 (detail of the foot of the chalice)

Chalice; Jan Ferdinand Schachtel, Prague, 1st quarter of the 18th century (detail of the cup)

Cabinet clock (detail); William Jourdain, Josef Winterhalder Sr.; 2nd quarter of the 18th century

Ornate with embroidery (detail), workshop of the Premonstratensian sisters in Doksany, 2nd quarter of the 18th century

Shell with the depiction of St. Norbert; J. A. Pink, 1731