Two Paintings by Norbert Grund

Exhibit of the Month 7 / 2022

The exhibit of July features two paintings Gothic Church with Inn and Castle in Italy by the Czech Rococo painter Norbert Grund (December 4, 1717 Prague-Mala Strana – July 17, 1767 Prague-Mala Strana).

Both exhibited paintings were acquired for the museum's collection as a gift in 1899, through the Friends of the Museum Society (Verein der Museumsfreunde Brüx), which managed the museum's activities and care for the collections since 1894. In total, this Friends of the Museum Society received a collection of eight paintings by Norbert Grund as a gift, of which two were selected for the exhibit of the month, representing Grund's typical and most common themes. These were mainly gallant scenes, hunting scenes, and aristocratic entertainment or life in the countryside and in the city. The only exception among the wide range of themes he addressed was still life.

Norbert Grund – painter of cabinet genre paintings

Grund's father, Kristián, worked as a court painter for the Kolovrats, and it was there, thanks to access to their extensive art collection, that Norbert Grund gained his first painting experience in 1738. His study trips then took him to Vienna, Venice, and Würzburg. He also trained in noble art collections and drew inspiration from graphic prints. Czech Baroque art, German masters of miniatures, Venetian painters of views, and especially French Rococo painting by Antoine Watteau had an influence on Grund's work.

In 1751, he got married, and the marriage brought him six or seven children. Supporting such a large family was not easy at that time, which is why he preferred smaller formats and more commercially viable genre painting and landscape painting, which were particularly popular among the middle class, thus ensuring sales. He also painted biblical motifs on commission. In 1752, he became a member of the painters' guild in Mala Strana. His miniature paintings impress with their precise execution and sense of detail, which can faithfully evoke the given situation. There is only one self-portrait of his, Self-Portrait with Palette, in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague, where he is also represented by more than two hundred works donated by Josef Karel Eduard Hoser to the then Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art.

Text: PhDr. Olga Kubelková