Prague, Dec 28 (CTK) – Nine new items, including the Vyssi Brod Cycle of Gothic panel paintings and the Madonna of Veveri, will join the list of the Czech national cultural heritage (NKP) as of January 1, 2016.
The list will then comprise 306 items, while dozens of thousands of items and landmarks enjoy the cultural heritage status.
The government approved the nine new NKP items earlier this year.
The Catholic Church demanded return of some of them within the state-church property settlement (restitution) process.
However, the state declares as national cultural heritage even the artifacts and sights that are not in its ownership.
The NKP items are subject to a stricter protection than cultural heritage items. The law restricts their possible temporary or permanent export and sale.
Cultural sights are declared by the Culture Ministry, while the government alone decides on national cultural heritage status.
Out of the new national heritage items, the Cycle of Vyssi Brod, south Bohemia, was returned to the Catholic Church in the past and the church will probably also regain the Madonna of Veveri 14th-century Gothic panel painting since the appeals court ruled in early December that the National Gallery (NG) must release it to the parish in Veverska Bityska, south Moravia. The NG is yet considering an appellate review with the Supreme Court.
Moreover, the NKP list will newly include an astronomical clock from the latter half of the 18th century, the Hymnbook of Zlutice, an illuminated manuscript from 1558-1565, two Renaissance sextants from around 1600, altar Gothic paintings from Roudniky, north Bohemia, a jewel box from 1680-1690 and a legendary copper relief (palladium) from the first half of the 15th century, situated in a church in Stara Boleslav, central Bohemia.
