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Lot Essay
The attribution has been confirmed by Professor Helmut Brsch-Supan of Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin. Meyer was a scenery and view painter who studied under Johann Christian Schulz and Giuseppe Galli, called Bibiena, in his native Dresden and worked in Potsdam from 1751 until his death. The present picture can be compared to Meyer's View of the Neue Palais and Potsdam of 1771 at Sanssouci in which the artist employs many of the same features: the low viewpoint, the pair of trees as a framing device in the right foreground and the use of ruined slabs bearing inscriptions which provide topographical information. The lowered viewpoint and the handling of architectural detail in both pictures reveals the influence of Bernardo Bellotto.
Unlike some of the earlier views of Prague which tend to concentrate on particular sections of the city, the present painting is a panorama viewed from across the Vltava (Moldau) looking towards the Old and New Towns, moving upwards through the Lesser town with its Baroque churches and palaces, to the castle and Gothic cathedral of St. Vitus.
In the left foreground is the tip of the Stvanice Island jutting out into the Vltava. Among the many churches in the Old Town depicted are those of Our Lady-of-the-Snows, founded by the Emperor Charles IV in 1347 to commemorate his coronation as King of Bohemia, the pinnacled towers of Our Lady-before-Tyn and St. Nicholas in the Alstad, a centralised baroque structure with dome and bell towers designed by Kiligan Ignaz Dientzenhofer. Moving nearer the Charles Bridge of 1357, with its many Baroque devotional sculptures, there is the dome of the Church of the Knights of the Cross, the tiered faade of the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius in Charles Square and the celebrated entrance gates to the Old and Lesser Towns. Climbing up the hill are the bell towers and dome of the church of St. Nicholas on the Kleinseite. Begun by the great German architect Cristophe Dientzenhofer in 1704-11, it was only completed in 1755, providing a terminus post quem for the present picture. To the right of the church looking into the park, is the convex central pavilion of the Lobkowicz Palace (1703-7), now the German Embassy, and to the left is the bulk of the Smiricky Palace where the Protestant nobles met to plot the defenestration of the Catholic Habsburg officials, an act that proved to be the catalyst for the Thirty Years War. On the far right, almost out of the picture plane but still visible, is the delicate loggia of the Belvedere of the Royal Summer Palace in the garden of Prague Castle. One of the most beautiful Renaissance buildings outside Italy, it was built to Paolo della Stella's designs in 1538-52.
Unlike some of the earlier views of Prague which tend to concentrate on particular sections of the city, the present painting is a panorama viewed from across the Vltava (Moldau) looking towards the Old and New Towns, moving upwards through the Lesser town with its Baroque churches and palaces, to the castle and Gothic cathedral of St. Vitus.
In the left foreground is the tip of the Stvanice Island jutting out into the Vltava. Among the many churches in the Old Town depicted are those of Our Lady-of-the-Snows, founded by the Emperor Charles IV in 1347 to commemorate his coronation as King of Bohemia, the pinnacled towers of Our Lady-before-Tyn and St. Nicholas in the Alstad, a centralised baroque structure with dome and bell towers designed by Kiligan Ignaz Dientzenhofer. Moving nearer the Charles Bridge of 1357, with its many Baroque devotional sculptures, there is the dome of the Church of the Knights of the Cross, the tiered faade of the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius in Charles Square and the celebrated entrance gates to the Old and Lesser Towns. Climbing up the hill are the bell towers and dome of the church of St. Nicholas on the Kleinseite. Begun by the great German architect Cristophe Dientzenhofer in 1704-11, it was only completed in 1755, providing a terminus post quem for the present picture. To the right of the church looking into the park, is the convex central pavilion of the Lobkowicz Palace (1703-7), now the German Embassy, and to the left is the bulk of the Smiricky Palace where the Protestant nobles met to plot the defenestration of the Catholic Habsburg officials, an act that proved to be the catalyst for the Thirty Years War. On the far right, almost out of the picture plane but still visible, is the delicate loggia of the Belvedere of the Royal Summer Palace in the garden of Prague Castle. One of the most beautiful Renaissance buildings outside Italy, it was built to Paolo della Stella's designs in 1538-52.