The collection display will show you a number of themes and aspects associated with religious art, such as Passions, the Holy Family and Folk Piety as well as Original & Copy, and you will stop by a group of the oldest wooden sculptures in Slovakia.
Introducing the entire collection, there are two monumental altar screens by Anton Schmidt from Kremnica. They exemplify the context in which images were most often used in Christian liturgy: as part of the altar wholes.
A statue group by the contemporary sculptor Ján Zelinka brings the exposition to a conclusion, highlighting a further two important themes of Christian art – Pietà and Iconoclasm.
The collection display Sacred Art includes two touch-sound aids for the works Madonna with Angels of Poprad and Ecstasy of St. Teresa. These are primarily intended for the blind and partially sighted, but anyone may use touch to explore relief copies of the works, which are accompanied by audio commentary.
The graphic cabinets — conveniently named “secular” and “biblical” according to the prevailing theme of the graphic sheets — have been preserved as interior wall decoration in two rooms of the representative floor of the Mirbach Palace, likely commissioned by one of the original owners of the building. They contain 290 engravings, etchings, and mezzotints from the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries, secondarily colored by unknown authors.
The secular cabinet houses 84 graphic sheets of French, Italian, and English origin, displayed in individual panels in a four-tiered decorative installation. The collection comprises pastoral, allegorical, historical, mythological, genre, and two biblical themes.
The most extensive group of works is based on paintings by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. Other interesting graphics include engraved interpretations of works by François Boucher, Charles Joseph Dominiqua Eisen, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Pierre Mignard, Louis de Boullogne, Pietro da Cortona, Angelika Kauffman, and others.
In the biblical cabinet, there are 206 graphic sheets of various sizes, exclusively featuring sacred motifs. Impressive works of Italian origin are placed in larger formats in the middle of three walls, while smaller graphics of Dutch, German, French, and Italian origin can be found on the edges and on the east wall. The most extensive series of graphics comes from the Dutch artists Caspar and Jan Luyken, as well as Francesco Antonio Meloni.
Graphic sheets based on models by Jacopo Amigoni, Giuseppe Zocchi, Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Pietro Longhi, Francesco Guardi, and others are also worth mentioning. Several works, for example, based on models by Franz Sigrist d. Ä., Gottfried Bernhard Göz, and the etchers Jakob Gottlieb Thelott, and probably Georg Philipp II Rugendas, were published by the German publishing house of Johann Georg Hertel.
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The Crown Tower in Bratislava Castle holds significant historical value. Built in the 13th century, it is considered the oldest remaining structure within the castle. In the 15th century, it was incorporated into the Castle Palace as the southwest corner. It was named after the Hungarian crown jewels, which were kept there, except for intermittent periods between 1552 and 1783. In the present day, the Crown Tower serves various purposes. It houses a small exhibition showcasing the crowns of Hungarian kings, coronation medals, and artwork depicting coronations that occurred in Bratislava.
Furthermore, following its reconstruction, the tower’s upper floor now functions as an observation deck for visitors. From there, one can enjoy panoramic views of Bratislava and even glimpse three countries: Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary.
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