Gallery puts two newly restored Gothic paintings on display

Prague, March 6 (CTK) - Two newly restored Gothic panel paintings, the early 15th century soft-style century Madonna of Lnare and the early 16th century St Anne with St Mary and Child Jesus, have been displayed by the National Gallery (NG) on its premises in the St Agnes Convent in Prague.

The restoration works definitively confirmed that the latter painting's author is the Master of the Litomerice altarpiece, a leading representative of Bohemian painting at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Along with the paintings, which will be on display till May 26, the NG will present pictures and documents highlighting the course and results of the restoration works.

The two paintings were each completed in a quite different social and artistic situation. Their common denominator is their high quality that is striking even though only fragments of the pictures have been preserved, NG experts told journalists.

Both pictures were probably made in the painters' workshops in Prague, the centre of art during the Luxembourg and the Jagiellon rules in the 14-16th centuries.

The NG originally planned to move its permanent exhibition of Gothic art from the St Agnes Convent, situated on the bank of the Vltava River and endangered by potential floods, to the premises it acquired near Prague Castle.

However, most recently the NG decided to postpone the step pending the church property return outcome.

The government pushed through a law returning former confiscated property to churches late last autumn. The property to be returned may include some works or buildings managed by the NG.

The exhibition of Gothic art will therefore remain in the St Agnes Convent in the years to come.

The ownership of works of art has no influence on their public presentation. State galleries and museums often display artifacts that had been loaned to them by private owners or churches.

The Madonna of Lnare, for example, has been loaned to the NG by the Roman Catholic parish in Lnare, south Bohemia.