Woman war artists: Evelyn Dunbar

Evelyn Dunbar was born in Reading (1906-1960), daughter of tailor William and amateur artist Florence. Evelyn had been employed since April 1940 as an artist working for the Ministry of Information; Roger was already serving with the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve. Throughout the war years it had been Evelyn's intention to paint her husband's portrait, but as with many marriages in wartime, their union was more marked by separation than by being together. In Jan 1943 she arrived in Usk Wales to record the work of the Women’s Land Army. This civilian organisation mobilised women to work in agriculture & other jobs, filling labour gaps left by men gone to the military.

women workers busy knitting on the train.

Stand-by Train 21, by Dunbar, 1941

Imperial War Museum

 

Milking Practice with Artificial Udders, 1940, 

Liss Llewellyn Fine Art 

Evelyn was the only salaried woman war artist, appointed to record Land Girls working on the home front. The women may not have been driving tanks into battle fields or shooting enemy soldiers, but they were giving up family life to work for the nation while their husbands were away. In Dunbar’s artworks, there was a recurring theme of women adapting to unfamiliar work and environs as both the war and technology shaped lives: ambulance drivers were assisted into anti-gas protective clothing as their bodies became cumbersome and strange; women learnt to milk cows using mechanical dummy machines; and tailors prepared war garments. Baling Hay 1940 showed a crucial role of women in WW2; the WLA ensured continued food production for the British population at a time when imported supplies were severely compromised.

Baling Hay, 1940 

Museum Wales

The management of food supplies and consumption, particularly via rationing of essentials, was introduced as soon as WW2 started. Fish supplies were affected as the Royal Navy requisitioned much of the fishing fleet; the German navy in the North Sea restricted the remaining east coast fleets. The shopping queue was a symbol of this change and also part of the difficult process of adapting to the new, daily rituals. Although fresh fish was under-supplied and very expensive, being perishable it was never rationed. So The Queue at the Fish Bar 1944 was always long; even air raids didn’t deter them. Dunbar’s canvas size emphasised the length of the queue and her details showed the shoppers’ determination as they carried their empty baskets and the fishmonger ran the stall. Social conventions (eg chats) held the queue together.

The Queue at the Fish Bar, 1944
Imperial War Museum, London

Dunbar contrasted the duties of the population at war. The sign of abundance on the shop was read against the reality of the queue. She made clear who was expected to queue, women and older men, and who will have their meals served to them. The serviceman riding past and the service women facing outward had to attend more urgent business. But civilians weren’t rushing; just queueing.

A final war painting was A Land Girl and the Bail Bull, 1945, painted when husband Roger was away serving with the RAF. It was a Land Girl's at work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The bail was the movable shed where the milking was done. Soon after dawn in the early summer the girl had to catch and tether the bull, entice him with a bucket of fodder and hide the chain behind her, ready to snap on his nose-ring, a delicate, dangerous job. The model for the land girl was her Evelyn’s sister Jessie, who posed for her several times but with her wounded eye averted.

A Land Girl and the Bail Bull , 1945 

Tate

Post-war Evelyn settled into rural Kent and painted a great deal until her death. But didn’t exhibit much and only sold one or two commissions. The final version of the painting was on an easel in her Kent studio when she died. After its appearance on Antiques Roadshow, its owner donated the painting to Dunbar’s local gallery, Maidstone Museum, which in turn loaned the picture to Pallant House in Chichester.

Not all Evelyn Dunbar’s works have been rediscovered; some wartime paintings remain lost. Still, there has been enough newly rediscovered work to be going on with. What will happen to her work when the 2026 show finishes?

Her war works had hung in Tate Britain and Imperial War Museum. In 2015 Pallant House Gallery staged a show called Evelyn Dunbar: The Lost Works, featuring much of Ro’s hoard. It is the first big retrospective of an artist who has certainly been neglected and perhaps misunderstood since her death. The exhibition includes the paintings for which she is best known: her WW2 commissions of the Women’s Land Army at work, such as Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook. She was a war artist but she didn’t paint horror like some other war artists eg Doris Zinkeisen painted Human Laundry, an image of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp’s starving bodies. 

Accidentally seeing Aunt Evelyn Dunbar’s art on a 2013 TV Antique programme fascinated her niece Ro Dunbar. Ro remembered her farmhouse attic in Kent had a tightly bound collection of artworks Evelyn’s husband Roger Folley left after his wife’s death. “I had no idea what was there. I thought it might all be paintings by Evelyn’s mother, Florence.” But when Ro looked, there was a whole hoard of works by Evelyn, the woman described as a genius by Sir William Rothenstein, Principal of Royal College of Art where she’d studied.

Another cousin, Christopher Campbell-Howes, was compiling a record of her paintings. So when Ro told him about some art in her attic, he flew over from France where he lived. When he saw them, he was shocked. What had been languishing in Ro’s attic for 50 years were 500+ art works, and overnight it doubled Dunbar’s known oeuvre. For 20 years, Campbell-Howes had been tracking the contents of Evelyn’s Lost Studio, dismantled after her 1960 death, its contents sold or given to family, collecting dust in Ro’s loft.

history of British public telephone boxes

Before 1876, communication over distance was often by telegraphy. The General Post Office/GPO, governmental till 1969, had the monopoly on UK’s telegraphic communication. The telephone was a marvellous technical innovation but very costly; use was limited to wealthy homeowners and businesses. And there wasn’t a single unified system; it was owned and operated by private companies operating local exchanges to which homes and businesses subscribed. In 1884 the GPO relaxed the rules that limited exchanges, meaning that the first public telephone network began with only 13,000 phones nationwide.

As technology improved, more services emerged. The GPO started with Jubilee Concession, installing a kiosk in all c8,000 towns with a Post Office. Acts of Parliament unified National Telephone Company/NTC and GPO services.

A UK telephone network division came pre-WW1 when NTC assets were acquired by the GPO, effectively nationalising the telephone network. With the combined staff and assets of two separate organisations, the GPO looked at equipment regulation, but WW1 put kiosk development on hold.

London’s First Telephone Box K1, 1921 
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In 1921 Britain's standard kiosk K1 was introduced by Post Office. Its design was conservative so many of the phone box designs were protected by trademark registrations, held by British Telecommunications. K1, made of concrete, was not initially well-received. 14 K1 boxes remain, 7 registered by Historic England.

In 1923, two independent schemes were established to test design alternatives to K1. The Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Committee ran a competition to design a new national kiosk. And Birmingham Civic Society produced independent proposals for a new national kiosk, which they submitted to the GPO. This caused the newly established Parliamentary Royal Fine Art Commission (1924) to examine questions of public service and art value. The red telephone box emerged from a design competition.

 

K6

The public telephone box was designed by noted architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was in cast iron. Their distinctive red colour made them easily recognisable. From 1926, the kiosks displayed a prominent crown symbolising the government.

8 kiosk types were introduced by the GPO between 1926-83. The K6 was designed by Scott to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V coronation in 1935. c60,000 examples were installed across Britain, explaining why the K6 became THE red Telephone Box. 11,000+ K6s remain. More stream-lined than the K2, the K6 was deployed widely by 1940, despite initial resistance to its red colour.

Scott’s design was like the K2, but smaller and cheaper to produce. The K6 was made of cast-iron sections, bolted together, standing on a concrete base. Its general design was a 4-sided rectangular box with a domed roof. The door was of teak, with a metal cup handle. Set into the slot was an illuminated telephone sign, with serif capital lettering on opaque glass. The pediments had a moulded Royal crown. 

Motoring organisations, Automobile Association/AA and Royal Automobile Club/RAC, enjoyed the benefits of a telephone network for members in a network of sentry boxes. Because cars were expensive and were prone to breakdowns, the motoring clubs employed patrolmen men to shelter in the boxes and to provide motorists with roadside aid. The Police Service also grew a network of kiosks, allowing officers to keep contact with their station. Metropolitan Police Service introduced Police boxes in 1929.

Scott’s winning design, chosen by the Royal Fine Art Commission, featured a classical style with a dome like John Soane’s. Scott was Director of the Sir John Soane Museum at the same time he was working on the telephone box design. The kiosk was ideally to be constructed from cast-iron with a per-unit price c£40. Three kiosks were installed behind London’s National Gallery in 1925.

Without a cost-effective kiosk used nationwide, GPO reverted to K1 with larger windows and revised signage. This was an interim solution, and by 1928 the GPO commissioned Scott to produce a cheaper kiosk made of pre-cast concrete. The GPO was not content with the K2 they had been working on, so they planned a new kiosk which could incorporate a stamp machine and post box; a mini-Post Office. 

Telephone and post office facilities

Atlas Obscura

In 1929 Scott introduced K3, a similar design to the K2 but made from reinforced concrete for nation-wide use. The K3 was cheaper than the K2 but still more expensive than the K1. See a rare surviving K3 kiosk at the London Zoo.

The K4 was an enlarged version of K2, designed by GPO’s Engineering Dept. In 1927 the K4 model included a post box and stamp vending machines. But only 50 K4 kiosks were produced. The GPO planned for a low cost kiosk. Introduced in 1934, K5 was a metal-faced plywood work, designed to be portable and used at exhibitions, but never completed.

In 1937 the Tercentenary Concession celebrated GPO's 300th anniversary and 1,000 more kiosks were installed for local authorities paying low subscriptions. In 1939 a tougher version was introduced. In 1949 Royal Fine Arts Commission got re-involved, allowing rural examples in different colours. Post-war c60,000 examples lived, and of the 8 kiosk types introduced by the GPO, the K6 heritage legacy remains best.

Post-war, the 1951 Festival of Britain was held on London’s South Bank. The Festival was a tonic to Britain then, showing the recovery from austerity. It demonstrated skills in the arts, architecture, industrial design, science and technology. And a crown motif with Queen Elizabeth II.

Lending library in unused kiosk

In 1959 the GPO invited submissions for a new kiosk from leading architects. After considering 6 experimental designs, K7 kiosks were designed by Neville Conder and installed in 1962. Ahead of its time, the K7’s use of aluminium was only adopted much later. So the GPO opted for a design by Bruce Martin; he proposed aluminium, not the trusted cast-iron. K8 kiosk arrived July 1968. 1969 predicted the end of GPOs kiosks. Since its inception, the GPO was nationalised, but as a Government Dept. By 1981 the Post Office was split into two businesses, privatising telecommunications Ap 1984.

In a year British Telecom announced a £160 mill modernisation scheme: installing modern kiosks in the public network. But historical groups & progressive London boroughs highlighted the kiosks’ plight. Statutory protection was given to 2,000 key kiosks by English Heritage.

AA and RAC kiosks also worsened. Reliable vehicles allowed patrolmen to travel in their own vans and telephone equipment could be housed in smaller pedestals. And the Police kept in touch via personal radios. As British Telecom was left with unprofitable kiosks to maintain, the company created an Adopt a Kiosk Scheme, demonstrated the strength of local communities in preserving and maintaining their heritage. Local authorities adopted unused kiosks for £1, with the community accepting responsibility for maintenance. Organisations took these boxes for other uses eg some counties’ K6s became a community libraries after their mobile library services discontinued. Or a defibrillator.

Defibrillator in unused kiosk

The iconic design of the red telephone box found a place in parts of the world, eg U.S, Australia, New Zealand, where they have been preserved in historic sites. But the red telephone box is a beloved symbol of British heritage and their cultural significance endures. The red telephone box is an artwork, history and national identity, one of UK's favourite design icons in 2006!

Thank you to The Historic England Blog which you may enjoy reading.

Jewish Salonika - great cultural centre

Thessaloniki was once the largest Jewish city in the world. Alexander the Great granted legal equality to Jews in 331 BC and this new freedom drew many Jews to Hellenistic cities. Sephardi Jews migrated in very large numbers when they were expelled from Spain in 1492. Thessaloniki’s community influenced Sephardim around the world, both culturally and economically. The Great Fire of 1917 that raged over the city damaged half the Jewish districts, 45 synagogues, schools, shops and businesses. c50,000 were made homeless and many Jewish sites were greatly harmed. But until WW2, Thessaloniki had a key Jewish community, the only important European city with a Jewish majority. 

Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki

1. Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki is in the central city. Built in 1904-6, the building hosted commercial sites owned by Jewish merchants, a fine example of urban architecture that survived the 1917 fire. Luckily the renovations were carried out with respect for its architectural identity, now a Heritage Listed site.

Once housing the Bank of Athens and a French-language Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Museum opened mid 2001. It’s permanent & temporary displays highlight the community’s history via photos, documents, domestic objects & cultural artefacts. And archives of Holocaust records.

Monasterioton Synagogue, 1927

 

2. Atop Syngrou St, Monasterioton Synagogue is the only surviving pre-war synagogue in a city that once had 40-50 synagogues. It was built in 1927 by Jews from Monastir in Macedonia. The site was saved in WW2 because it was requisitioned as a Red Cross warehouse and although damaged by the 1978 earthquake, it was restored by the Greek government. And there are other small prayer houses.

3. In late 1930s, new laws were passed so Jews were slowly segregated and made 2nd-class citizens. With Nazis arriving, many Jews joined the Greek resistance & others went into hiding. In the Black Shabbat July 1942, all Jewish men in town aged 18-45 were rounded up in Central Liberty Sq., waiting to go. This made anti-Semitism legal, forcing many Jews to flee. Holocaust Memorial in Liberty Sq recalls 50,000 Greek Jews killed. The memorial is a bronze 7-branch menorah, wrapped in flames and corpses.

 Ancient Jewish cemetery

Photo from before the marble was stolen in 2019

4. The ancient Jewish cemetery was razed by the Nazis, and the new campus of the Aristotle Uni of Thessaloniki was built on the site. Recently the university unveiled a Jewish Memorial to the graveyard destroyed by the Nazis. The monument is a series of gravestones in a bed of green grass next to a broken menorah that became a significant historical marker. Yet in Jan 2019 vandals smashed the campus monument, days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And Aristotelean Uni of Thessaloniki has reestablished its Jewish Studies Centre, 80+ years after it was abolished by Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas in 1935. The decision to reestablish it was made with the city’s Jewish community, which agreed to help fund the programme. The programme began 2014-5, offering undergraduate and graduate studies.

Originally an Ottoman hamam

Later Bath of the Jews

5 Hamam/Bath of the Jews is an early C16th Ottoman-era bath house, not originally built by the Jewish community. It stands on the corner of Vasileos Irakleiou & Frangini Sts, this area being settled by Sephardim.

6. In 1878-1914, flour mills, hotels, cafés, brick factories, breweries, silk-worm nurseries, carpet & shoe factories, soap works and large tobacco workshops were established, mainly by Jews, many working class. So the Workers’ Union, formed by Jewish workers, became the key workers’ organisation in the Ottoman Empire in 1909. The sheltered Modiano Market was designed by Modiano family in 1922-5 as a central food market, with a glass roof and 4 galleries.

Stoa Saul, 

bonflaneur 

7. Built by famous banker Saul Modiano in 1867-1871, Stoa Saul is a commercial complex built in 1867-71. The arcade served architect Eli Modiano, as was the Modiano Mortgage Bank. A section was destroyed in the 1917 fire then rebuilt in 1929, as a tribute to the important Saul Modiano family.

Le Banque de Salonique, 1907

Now Malakopi shopping gallery

8. La Banque de Salonique, founded by talented Italian-Jewish Allatini family, is now Malakopi Arcade. Designed in 1907 by noted architect Vitaliano Poselli and built on Stock Exchange Squ. The clock on the façade stopped when a major earthquake hit in 1978, ruining buildings and killing 45 people. Today it’s a fine shopping gallery.

9. Queen Olga Avenue is lined with fin de siècle villas, some now wasting away. This was once the most elegant and richest areas of the city, and the home of many ruling families in the late C19th. Some villas are galleries, others house cultural and historical institutions. Many retain the colourful decorations and classy C19th furniture while other villas are still awaiting renewal. Emmanuel Salem (1859-1940) became one of the most prominent jurists in International Law, then was the first Gen. Sec. of the Bar Association. He was involved in founding companies for: water, gas, trams, electricity and Banque du Salonique.

Salem Mansion was designed in 1878 for the wealthy Jeborga merchant family. It was bought in 1894 by Emmanuel Salem and remained in his family for 20+ years. After WW1, Salem was involved in negotiating the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. 

This 3-storey mansion’s architectural styles were Classicism, Renaissance or Baroque. When the family left, the villa was the Austro-Hungarian Empire Consulate. It was bought by Italy in 1924 and served as Italian Consulate for 50+ years until damaged.  The Heritage Listed house is still empty.

10. A Great Tragedy happened at the Old Railway Station, early 1943. Jews were shoved into cattle carriages and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau & Bergen-Belsen camps, 46,000+ in 19 rail convoys in 1943. In all, 96% of Salonika’s Jewish community had been murdered by 1945. The Jewish cemetery was pulled down by vandals, and most of the surviving Jewish culture of the city were destroyed. In 1951, the Old Railway Station became a goods station. An C19th railway administrative building has a monument with historic details of the Baron Hirsch Jewish district. Other reminders of Jewish life were lost with the city’s post-war renewal which peaked in the 1960s, and then with the earthquake in 1978. Only 1,200 Jews live in Thessaloniki now.

Hirsch Hospital, opened 1908

now Hippocrateon Hospital

11. Thessaloniki’s biggest and most modern hospital today, Hirsch Hospital, was built between 1905-8, designed by architect Pierro Arrigoni. Built as a hospital for the Jewish community, the costs were covered by Baroness Clara de Hirsch, wife of Austrian-Jewish philanthropist Maurice de Hirsch. In the inter-war era, Hirsch was used as a military hospital by French and British. Post-WW2 it served British military bases, so then the Jewish Community transferred ownership to the Greek State.

Emp Rudolf, Prague: arts, science, palace

Rudolf II (1552-1612) was born in Vienna to Maximilian II and Maria of Austria, grandson of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. Part of the Habsburg dynasty, they ruled a union of Austria, Germany, Hungary, Croatia & Czech Republic (1483-1806). At 11 Rudolf was separated from his big family and sent to his uncle Philip II’s Spanish court, where he lived a lonely 8 years with stern tutors. He returned from Madrid as a lonely young man.

Old Royal Palace within Prague Castle, started C12th 

additions by Rudolf II

Living Prague

The eldest surviving son of Emperor Maximilian II and Maria, who was herself the daughter of the Emperor Charles V, Rudolf was crowned King of Hungary in 1572 and of Bohemia in 1575 as Rudolf II. He succeeded his father as Emperor in 1576.

The new Holy Roman Emperor moved the Habsburg capital from Vienna to Prague in 1583, settling in the centre of his mighty Empire. The Habsburgs had traditionally favoured Vienna, but the Ottoman Empire had invaded Hungary decades before; thus the Habsburgs had fought lengthy land wars on their border since. Prague Castle put Rudolf safely distant from Turkish army’s advance.

Prague was a key centre in continental Europe, a land-locked city with Baltic Sea 500 km north and Adriatic Sea 600 km south. It was a busy urban centre comparable in size & culture to Amsterdam and located at the cross-roads linking Vienna, Krakow, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Munich.

The court-centred city flourished, split into 4 administrative areas: Old Town, New Town, Lesser Town and Castle. Between Old Town and the river to the north was the gated Jewish town, with its inhabitants locked in each night. Accounts of Prague burghers & merchants revealed that wealthy families owned items that extended to distant lands. Luxury items flowed.

Collecting was a Habsburg family passion. Rudolf’s grandfather liked Roman coins and dad Maximilian loved antique statues. So the imperial seat became a lavish court where Rudolf became a very royal collector. Lions, parrots, Turkish armour and exotic stones from Sth America and the Far East poured into Rudolf’s collections. His court attracted diplomats, artists, artisans and scientists seeking the Emperor’s patronage contributed to Prague’s dynamic cultural richness for 30+ years.

Rudolf devoted his life to accumulating the greatest collection of the arts in all of Renaissance Europe. He owned works by Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Veronese, Pieter Brughel Elder, Titian and Hieronymus Bosch, as well as sculptures by Adriaen de VriesAnd he amassed vast treasures as patron of Mannerists, e.g., Hans von Aachen, Bartholomeus Spranger, and Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Durer, Feast of the Rosary, 1506, 162 x 192 cm,

National Gallery Prague
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All these works seduced Rudolf who was helpless under their spell. German artist Albrecht Dürer had produced The Feast of the Rosary (1506), an image of the Virgin and Child surrounded by high-status believers including a pope and some kings. In early C17th this was a Venice altarpiece of the German Church. For a century, the city’s transient German merchants had prayed before it, hoping for prosperity at Venice’s many marketplaces. Rudolf had a huge appetite for art and his frantic notes commanded a European network of ambassadors and dealers who serviced his obsession, buying treasures on his behalf. Now Rudolf pestered the German community ceaselessly, sending his men to meet the church’s clergy for haggling. The congregation wouldn’t part with it but in 1606 they relented. In the building’s dim medieval interior, the painting was extricated and wrapped in carpets. He paid 9 times the original price for The Rosary, a fantastic sum! Flemish artist Bartholomeus Spranger accompanied The Rosary on its trip; the strongmen who were ordered to carry The Rosary from Venice to Prague had to haul it over the Alps by hand, working in a relay to carry it over. Mud and snow made the journey gruelling, so when the Rosary finally arrived in Prague, Rudolf sent everyone out to relish it alone.

Inventories from 1600 showed exquisite items eg seashells mounted in silver. Crammed into cabinets were trinkets made out of mother-of-pearl and coral, engraved brass plates, clocks, headpieces, helmets, maths instruments and the skins of thoroughbred Indian horses. Other key objects included a phial of the earth from which God created Adam; nails from Noah’s ark; and stuffed exotic animals. 

Jost Bürgi, mathematician, astronomer and clockmaker,

had his own clock workshop at Prague Castle.
World of the Habsburgs

Rudolf started major Renaissance additions to Prague Castle, new palace wings and the Mathematical Tower for his treasures. Each acquisition needed space so Rudolf modified his castle to make room for his growing number of objects. He built halls for his pictures and sculptures, and smaller rooms for jewels, books & animals. The Kunstkammer-cabinet of curiosities sat in a corridor. And next to his bedchamber were his favourite objects. Rudolf believed his religious possessions shielded him from harm, using his treasures for protective rituals. When Rudolf felt under threat from his enemies, he collected his Holy Grail (an agate bowl that collected Christ’s blood whilst on the cross)!

Cellini Salt Cellar

Reddit

Commissioned by French Francis I, the Cellini Salt Cellar was gifted in 1570 to Rudolf II's uncle Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. Then it featured in Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer. The salt cellar was an enamelled gold table sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini,  portraying Land, Tellus and Sea, Neptune. It was to promote conversation among intellectuals on the object's meaning. Today it is kept at Kunsthistor-isches Museum in Vienna, one of the world's most famous works of gold-smithing. Mounted on an ebony base, it features the mythological figures of Neptune and Demeter, flanked by a small temple and a shell to hold pepper and salt. Worth $US55-$65 million now.

His ambitious collection would be encyclopaedic! The Kunstkammer was organised into themes: Naturalia: natural history, zoology, botany, mineralogy; Scientifica: clocks, watches, globes; Artificialia: coins & prints. Knowledge was constantly evolving; scholarship was never complete.

Rudolf’s accumulation of objects did not isolate him. He allowed trusted scholars, scientists and alchemists into his flats to admire his objects. By studying his range of curiosities unmatched in size, diversity and variety, some of Rudolf’s circle made key discoveries. See his loved court astronomers; Tycho Brahe used Rudolf’s mathematical instruments to track Mars’ orbit. Later Johannes Kepler used these results for his laws of planetary motion, proving planets move in elliptical orbits around the Sun.

Rudolf may well have suffered from schizophrenia; his young brother Archduke Matthias and his army prepared to take over in 1611 and did, once Rudolf died in 1612. Some of the court’s wealth was transferred back to Vienna, which quickly became the settled Habsburg seat of power. The religious, dynastic and territorial issues that Rudolf left unaddressed during his reign led to the outbreak of 30 Years’ War (1618).

Prague Castle Art Gallery

Living Prague

Rudolf II changed Prague into a vibrant Renaissance hub in 1583-1612, but then Europe fell into one of the most destructive conflicts ever. When a Swedish army invaded Prague in 1648, soldiers pillaged 69 bronze statues, 470 paintings, 179 ivory objects and 600 agate & crystal goblets, and substantial war booty. Many precious items from Rudolf’s collections are still in Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. But many items stayed in Prague Castle. Some were pillaged by the Swedish Army stationed in Prague after 30 Years’ War ended in 1648, and ended up in Swedish collections.

Imperial crown made in Prague by Jan Vermeyen for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, 1602

Hofburg Palace in Vienna

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