Indagare Tours: Lobkowicz Palace

Located within the Prague Castle complex, the Lobkowicz Palace houses a significant portion of what is one of the most important private collections in all of Central Europe. The paintings on view here rival those found in the world’s top-tier museums, and include Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Haymaking, arguably the single most important painting in the Czech Republic. My favorite part of the exhibition, however, is the series of landscape paintings by Croll, which document, with Biedermeier clarity and informality, the Lobkowicz family’s many estates and the stunning Bohemian countryside of the 1840s. The family’s Music Archive is also quite impressive and features more than 4,000 scores, including original copies of Beethoven’s 4th and 5th Symphonies (complete with his own corrections), and a manuscript of Handel’s Messiah that was later revised and re-orchestrated by Mozart in a torrent of briskly inked annotations.

At least as impressive is the palace itself. Built in the mid-16th century and occupied by the family since that time, the palace was confiscated by the government in the 1940s, and the family relocated to Boston, Massachusetts. The fall of communism led to the passing of restitution laws in the early 1990s, which, in turn, led to the Lobkowicz family finally regaining ownership of many of their holdings throughout the Czech Republic, including the palace itself in 2002. The museum was opened to the public in 2007. Indagare can arrange for private tours of this castle and others of the family that include meals, wine tastings and visits with the prince himself.

There is an excellent museum shop, as well as a restaurant that offers breathtaking views of the entire city.