24 February

Eliška Zlatohlávková, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague

20-minute museum presentation followed by q&a plus discussion

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc ranks among the most important art collections preserved in the Czech Republic. Its character was shaped by figures such as Bishop Carel of Liechtenstein-Castelcorno and Archbishop Theodor Kohn, who enriched it through acquisitions on the European art market. The collection adorned both representative and private spaces of the archiepiscopal residences, and its display evolved over the centuries. The paper will focus on the presentation of this collection at the Kroměříž Chateau, where two distinct approaches can still be observed today – the classical picture gallery and the so-called panel arrangement, a continuous wall decoration using paintings.

Eliška Zlatohlávková studied Art History at the Department of Art History of Charles University, Prague. She gained her PhD with a theses on the iconography of Rudolf II before starting to work at Studia Rudolphina, the Research Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II. Currently, she works as scientific researcher at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. Her main research focusses on art at the court of Rudolf II, spaces for art collections (studiolo, Kunstkammer) and princely collections of the early modern era. She is co-author of the monograph From Studiolo to Gallery, Secular Spaces for Collections in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown on the Threshold of the Early Modern Era and has written articles dealing with collection spaces and collecting in the early modern era.

24 March

Kunstkammer Workshop with contributions by Sarah Wagner, 
FAU Competence Center for Research Data and Information, Erlangen; Laura Dieckmann Technical University of Dortmund and Bergbau- und Gotikmuseum Leogang, Austria

three ten-minute presentations followed by q&a plus discussion

The Kunst- and Wunderkammer in the Museum

This short presentation deals with the history of the Kunstkammer in modern museums and provides a brief overview of its development from the nineteenth century to the present day, as well as the curatorial approaches that can be observed. In the nineteenth century, Kunstkammern had by no means fallen into oblivion, but continued to exist under new conditions and with the loss of their encyclopedic concept in the newly emerging museums. In the twentieth century, this concept was investigated once more, and various curatorial approaches were developed to revive the Kunstkammer in museums, with a focus ranging from authenticity to fiction.

Sarah Wagner is an art historian specialising in the cultural technique of collecting, collection documentation and semantic knowledge modelling. She has been working in academic institutions in the fields of exhibition and collection development since 2012. Recently, she published her dissertation on the history and development of the Kunst- und Wunderkammer in the museum. She currently works at the FAU Competence Center for Research Data and Information, Erlangen.

The "Wunderkammer"-Collection of Nora Watteck from Salzburg through the ages and its museological reconstruction today

The master thesis 'A cabinet of curiosities in the 20th century? The Nora Watteck Collection of Salzburg' (2025), offered an initial survey of the Nora Watteck Collection, in close cooperation with the Bergbau- und Gotikmuseum Leogang in Austria. The work focussed primarily on the history of the collection's development, composition, museum reconstruction and current presentation in the exhibition space.
For a long time, the collection of Nora Watteck (1901–1993) remained in the family; was opened to the public at the Bergbau- und Gotikmuseum Leogang in 2021. Nora Watteck inherited many objects from the  collection of her grandfather, the Salzburg antique dealer Wenzel Swatek (1847-1913). After her death in 1993, the collection was preserved by her son Arno Watteck (*1926), even though the composition of the collection has undergone several changes since 1870.
This short presentation offers multi-layered reflections on the constitution of historical collections, their incorporation into museum displays, and on the epistemic and identity-forming processes of collecting. At the intersection of reconstruction, staging, and recontextualisation, the museum presentation raises questions about the construction of historical spaces, the possibilities of the 'historical authenticity' of collections, and of the mechanisms of museum presentation. How can such a collection be preserved in its composition and under which parameters can it be reconstructed and exhibited.
Laura Dieckmann M.A. studied cultural analysis and cultural mediation at the Technical University of Dortmund. Since completing her master's degree in May 2025, she has been working on the preparation of her doctoral thesis supervised by Prof. Dr. Kirsten Lee Bierbaum at TU Dortmund University. Her thesis will examine the role of objects made from animal materials in cabinets of curiosities and pre-modern systems of knowledge and historical human-animal relations.
Her areas of research focus on interdisciplinary cultural studies, museology, collection research, early modern cabinets of curiosities as well as the history of visualisation and materialisation of scientific knowledge.

28 April

Martina Baraldi, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; 

lecture of 40 minutes followed by q&a plus discussion

The Colour of Majesty: Gems in Rudolf II’s Collection

In 1581, Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) presented a matrix of raw emeralds to Elector Augustus (1553–1586) during the latter’s visit to Prague. Later incorporated into the statue of the Moor (1725, Dresden, Grünes Gewölbe) by the sculptor Balthasar Permoser and the court jeweller Johann Melchior Dinglinger, the Emerald Cluster offers a striking example of the visual impact and symbolic authority of coloured and brilliant gems in princely collections. More than a precious object, the emeralds embody a courtly conception of gems as a vehicle of brilliance and majesty, deeply embedded in the collecting practices and visual culture of Rudolf II’s Prague, where the careful orchestration of luminous materials transformed natural substances into signs of imperial power.
The focus of this presentation is on how emerging ideas about colour and light informed the perception, display, and arrangement of objects within Rudolf II’s collection. As this paper argues, the new theories of light and non-Aristotelian colour models developed at the Prague court offer another perspective from which to address the choreographed arrangement and juxtaposition of objects within the collection itself. In this sense, the emerald matrix returns not merely as an exemplary object but as a conceptual model: as Agostino del Riccio (1541–1598) observed, the deeply green emerald not only preserves its colour under any light but intensifies it, projecting its hue into the surrounding air; an effect that, within the logic of the collection, translates material brilliance into a visible form of majesty.
By attending to the subtle tonal modulations of selected objects from Rudolf II’s collection, this presentation proposes colour and light as key analytical tools for understanding the collection as a chromatically coherent and perceptually brilliant ordered ensemble.
Martina Baraldi is a PhD candidate at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, with support by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Her doctoral research examines works of art made from inlaid stone produced in Prague for Emperor Rudolf II, with a particular focus on materials, processes of making, and modes of manufacture. Her focus is grounded in material- and object-based methodologies. Her research and ongoing publications on stones and the technique of commesso di pietre dure combine archival investigation with practical training, gained through research visits to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the University of Utrecht, and participation in international programmes and conferences exploring art and science in the early modern period.

26 May

30 June