Sternberg Palace Art Gallery

The art gallery within Sternberg Palace features masterpieces of European art from the medieval period through the Renaissance to the Baroque.

The permanent exhibition, titled Old Masters II, continues in part chronologically and geographically from the companion display at Schwarzenberg Palace, although overall the works span a greater period of history.

Notable strengths of the Sternberg Palace Art Gallery include early Italian works from the 14th and 15th centuries, an unusually substantial group of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries, and a smaller but carefully selected representation of Spanish and French art. The altar with The Crucifixion by Hans Raphon is a rare piece. It is the only fully preserved retable of the Passion of the Christ in public collections in the Czech Republic.

Religious subjects dominate much of the display, reflecting both the period and the nature of the collections, though portraits, still lifes and landscape painting introduce variety as the visitor progresses. Interpretation is restrained, with concise wall texts that assume a degree of prior interest rather than attempting to guide casual visitors through a prescribed narrative.

Sternberg Palace was built at the turn of the 18th century for Count Wenzel Adalbert of Sternberg and was later adapted for institutional use. Its layout centres on a compact courtyard, from which a monumental staircase leads to the main exhibition rooms. Although much of the original decorative programme has been lost, the surviving architectural features – high ceilings, stucco work and generous windows – provide an appropriate backdrop for historic painting without competing for attention. Several rooms retain a sense of domestic scale rather than museum grandiosity, which suits the more intimate works particularly well.

There is a cloakroom for coats and larger items, and a small museum shop.

Visitors can enter the Sternberg Palace Art Gallery with the following tickets:

- Sternberg Palace – single-site ticket (Old Masters I).
- Schwarzenberg and Sternberg Palaces – joint ticket (Old Masters I & II).
- National Gallery Prague 10-day pass.

The companion venue to the Sternberg Palace Art Gallery (Old Masters II) is Schwarzenberg Palace (Old Masters I), located directly across Hradčanské Square. It marks the starting point of the chronological and geographical journey that continues at Sternberg.

For a comparable experience of art presented within historic architecture, visit St. Agnes Convent & Medieval Art Gallery in the Old Town.