The Moors guard the entrance of the very Baroque Morzin Palace at Nerudova 5 and were sculpted by artist Ferdinand Brokof. Prague has no shortage of hefty, detailed, muscled men adorning the doorways of the city’s palaces, but The Moors are unique, in that they are Moors, quite exotic, and not Bohemian.
Originally there had been four buildings on this site and the design completed in 1670 included the original floor plans of all four buildings to make the one large palace. The Moors appeared when the palace itself was redesigned in 1713 – 14 by the architect Giovanni Santini-Aichl for Count Morzin.
On the front of the building, besides The Moors, you will find the Night and Day allegory, the four statues on the cornice of the roof representing The Four Seasons and also the baroque iron balcony held up by The Two Moors.
The Morzin Palace now houses the Romanian Embassy. The building belongs to the Czech architectural patrimony and the elements of the façade are protected by UNESCO.
Trivia: It is said that Antonio Vivaldi was a friend of Count Morzin and it was the statues of The Four Seasons on the facade of the palace that inspired Vivaldi’s most famous work.
More Trivia: Count Morzin is remembered today as the first person to employ the composer Joseph Haydn as his music director. The first few of Haydn’s approximately 106 symphonies were written for the Count.
Similar posts that you might like:
- >> Photo Of The Day: Prague House Painters These painters looked like acrobats with paint cans and paint brushes hanging from their ropes while they worked their way down the facade of this building.
- >> Photo of the Day: Sgraffito of Schwarzenberg Palace Sgraffito is the art of incising, or scratching, a design into multicolored layers of plaster.
- >> Photo Of The Day: Kostel sv. Vavrince We walked by the Kostel sv. Vavrince, begun in the Romanesque style sometime between the years 992 and 1135 and was completed during the high baroque period.
- >> Pablo Picasso: Prints from the Years 1909-1968 Picasso’s extensive oeuvre of graphic prints was created throughout the artist’s life … exhibition runs through July 7,2009
- >> The Signs of Prague “And where would you like this package delivered, sir?”, asked the merchant. “Please send it around to The House of The Two Suns at 1pm please. Dekuji“,
Tags: architecture, daily photo, moor, nerudova, prague, sculpture
