Šternberský palác

Sternberg Palace is a Baroque residence tucked right beside Prague Castle's main gates, and for over two centuries it has doubled as an art gallery. Today it houses one of Central Europe's finest collections of Old Master paintings, run by the National Gallery Prague, spanning everything from Italian trecento panels to Netherlandish and Central European Baroque canvases.

Where exactly does the palace stand?

The building sits on Hradčany Square, immediately next to the entrance gates of Prague Castle, making it one of the easiest detours for anyone already walking the Castle grounds. Many visitors stumble on it almost by accident on their way to the Castle courtyards, only to find a far richer art collection inside than the palace's modest exterior suggests.

Who built it, and when?

The palace took its present Baroque form during a rebuilding campaign carried out between the late 1690s and 1708, commissioned by Count Wenzel Adalbert of Sternberg. The design is credited to the Italian architect Giovanni Battista Alliprandi, who was active across Bohemia for several aristocratic families and left a handful of similarly styled buildings around Prague.

From a patriotic art society to the National Gallery

Long before it became a gallery in the modern sense, the palace was home, between 1811 and 1871, to the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art — the very institution that evolved into today's National Gallery Prague. Art had already been on display there from 1814 onward, but it was only in 1947 that the building was formally absorbed into the National Gallery's collections, becoming one of its principal exhibition venues.

What can visitors see inside today?

Since December 2020, the palace has hosted the permanent exhibition "Old Masters II," organized around three main strands: Italian painting of the 14th and 15th centuries, Netherlandish art of the 17th and 18th centuries, and Central European painting from the same later period. A large share of the early Italian holdings was originally assembled by Archduke Franz Ferdinand d'Este, letting visitors trace painting's development across centers such as Siena, Florence, Venice, and Padua.

The single most celebrated work in the collection is Albrecht Dürer's "Feast of the Rosary," painted in Venice in the early 16th century as an altarpiece for the church of San Bartolomeo and later brought to Prague by Emperor Rudolf II. The permanent display also includes paintings by El Greco and Rembrandt, a monumental canvas by Peter Paul Rubens depicting the martyrdom of Saint Thomas, and further works by members of the Brueghel family and other Netherlandish masters.

Frequently asked questions

Is Sternberg Palace worth combining with a Prague Castle visit? Yes — given its location right at the Castle's main entrance, it makes a natural add-on to a Hradčany itinerary, especially for anyone more interested in Old Master painting than in castle architecture alone.

What is the gallery's single most famous artwork? Albrecht Dürer's "Feast of the Rosary," brought to Prague by Emperor Rudolf II, is generally regarded as the collection's centerpiece and one of the few major Dürer paintings held outside Germany or Austria.

Since when has the building functioned as an art gallery? Art has been shown in the palace since 1814, though it only became a permanent part of the National Gallery Prague's collections in 1947.

Who designed the palace? Its Baroque rebuilding is attributed to the Italian architect Giovanni Battista Alliprandi, working for Count Wenzel Adalbert of Sternberg around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.