Situated in the Old Town, the House of the Golden Ring is well worth a visit. This lovely Renaissance building was put up on the site of two medieval houses and has kept a Gothic portal. The cellars and ground floor of this building have original vestiges and barrel vaulting. The corridor on the ground floor still has fragments of 15th century paintings.

Today it is a part of the Prague City Gallery and houses a permanent exhibition of 20th century Czech art, both paintings and sculptures with a heavy emphasis on surrealism and symbolism. Here you can admire works by Toyen, Josef Sima and Jan Zrzavy.

There are also temporary expositions that are devoted to giving comprehensive profiles on particular artists or on art trends over the years. The paintings and sculptures are arranged by theme and not by artist as in so many other galleries, which makes the visit even more interesting. There is also a reading room containing catalogues and publications about the artists.

In Prague a lot of buildings are named after their house signs. According to local legend a ghost lost his gold ring one night while he was carousing with other ghosts. A burgher found the ring and attached it to his gate to ward off evil.

Prague is renowned for its beautiful buildings and perhaps the best of them is the Kinsky Palace in the Old Town Square.

The palace was built in the 18th century on the grounds of three 13th century buildings and you can see the vestiges of them in the cellars. Although the architecture is essentially Baroque, the façade is finest Rococo; the front of the palace is decorated with symbolic sculptures of the four Elements and antique gods. It was from the balcony of this palace that Klement Gottwald announced communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1948.

For a short time at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century a part of the palace was a German School and Franz Kafka attended classes there between 1893 and 1901.

Today it belongs to the Prague National Gallery and displays a “Prints and Drawings” collection and wonderful Landscape Exhibition of paintings from the 17th to the 20th century. There is an excellent café, a museum shop where you can buy posters and postcards and the Franz Kafka Bookshop where you will find his publications and details about his life and works.

Not all the buildings in Prague are ancient and among the more modern ones that are worth visiting is the Municipal Library on Marianské Square which houses a part of the Prague City Gallery.

Built between 1925 and 1925 by the architect Franstisek Roith the building isn’t only a library, but also a place for adult education, concerts and exhibitions. Here Prague citizens and visitors alike have access to books, DVD’s CD’s and the Internet, either on the library’s computers or by WIFI. The eastern wing, extensively decorated in Art Deco, is the official flat of the Mayor of Prague.

Above the main entrance of the library you will see fine statues by the Cubist sculptor Ladislav Kofranek and the ceiling of the vast central hall displays an intricate ornamental geometric decoration by Frantisek Kysela, the famous Czech painter and graphic designer.
After extensive restoration in 1994 a part of the Prague City Gallery was installed on the 2nd floor of the library. A new entrance to the gallery was created in 1996 by Valdo Munic.
The gallery has no permanent exposition of its own and holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.

If you want to visit a really fine gallery while you are in Prague, don’t miss the Rudolfinum Art Gallery in the Rudolfinum complex.

This beautiful Neo-Renaissance building which opened in 1885 was used as the seat of the Czech Parliament for several years before the 2dn World War and became the home of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946. The Art Gallery was opened in 1994 and occupies 1500 square metres of well appointed exposition space.

The gallery doesn’t have its own permanent exhibition and specialises mainly in avant-garde paintings and sculptures by famous international artists and local Czech artists. It occasionally displays paintings from older epochs to demonstrate the changes in art over the centuries.

The temporary exhibitions are often organised by foreign institutions in and around Prague. The events taking place are always given a lot of publicity and they attract a great number of people. These events include evening viewings, special interest occupation for schools and seminars.

When you have finished visiting the gallery, you can see the rest of the complex, including the Dvorak Concert Hall which has a magnificent pipe organ behind the stage. The complex café is a nice place to relax and have a cup of coffee and some very good cakes.

Chez Annamarie is a fairly new gallery. It hosts permanent exhibitions of contemporary art works of various renowned artists. The gallery owns oil, gouache and watercolor paintings, sculptures and ceramics.

Prague Castle Picture Gallery is situated in the northern wing of the New Palace in the 2nd courtyard. It is a small gallery and quite easy to miss, which would be a shame as it is well worth visiting.

The gallery holds a permanent exhibition of over 100 paintings from the collection of Rudolf II, who was a great art lover and who once had the largest private art collection in the 16th century. Some of the paintings were lost during the 30 Years War; others were removed to Vienna and England by Rudolf’s successors, but Prague Castle retains over 4000 fine paintings and the best of these are to be found in this small gallery.

Here you can admire paintings by Tiziano Vecellio and Rubens amongst other exceptional Italian, Flemish and German Old masters, and Czech Masters of the Baroque Period. You can also see a statuette of Martha and Venus by Hans Mont, an important 16th century sculptor. Fine jewellery is also on display, made by Italian, German and Flemish jewellers of Rudolf’s time.

The gallery itself was once the stables where Rudolf kept his famous Spanish horses. During reconstruction in the early 1960s, workers brought to light the remains of a 9th century church, which have been carefully preserved.

The Gallery at the St George Convent in the Prague Castle complex holds a permanent exhibition of Czech Baroque art from 1790 to 1910. Its purpose is to enlighten visitors about the changes of trends and styles of art during this period and it is a must for all lovers of Bohemian art.

In this 10th century convent you will find over 350 paintings and 54 sculptures arranged in nine sections according to their period of execution and theme. As well as the paintings and sculptures there are also models and sketches of tombstones and architectural structures. Because the gallery has a chapel you will also find an exhibition of Sacred Art where Myslbek’s statues of Bohemian saints and Emanuel Max’s “Crucified Christ” are on display.

Things to look out for include: Peter Brandl’s “Bust of a Talking Apostle”, Vaclav Varinec Reiner’s “Landscape with Orpheus and Animals”, Jan Kupecky’s “Self Portrait” and Roelant Savery’s “Stag Hunt”.

The gallery is part of the National Gallery and they have installed a small exhibition from the collection of Rudolf II. The Museum of Decorative Art has also lent the gallery a fine display of glass, porcelain and furniture from the 18th and 19th century.

Schwarzenberg Palace Gallery also belongs to the National Gallery. It houses Renaissance and Baroque art works from Bohemia, that includes about 160 sculptures and 280 paintings. Make sure you visit this amazing place while you in Prague. It worth of it.

The National Gallery in Stenberg Palace is another fine example of how Prague uses its ancient buildings to promote culture, art and history and no-one visiting Prague Castle should miss this lovely gallery dedicated to European art from the medieval period to the 21st century.

On the ground floor of the gallery, a part from a very good café and the gardens which display modern 20th century Czech sculpture, is an exhibition of German and Austrian art from the 15th to the 18th century. Here you can feast your eyes on Durer’s “Feast of the Rose Garland” and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s 1776 bronze sculpture of Diana.

The first floor is devoted to Italian art from the 14th to the 16th century, and Netherlands art of the 15th and 16th century. Here you will find Anthonie Blocklandt Van Monfoort’s lovely “Venus Dressing Cupid”. There is also a 4th century Egyptian painting entitled “Portrait of a Girl”.
On the second floor, which is the largest part of the gallery, are the exhibitions of Italian, Spanish, Flemish and Dutch art from the 16th to the 18th century and French art from the 17th and 18th century. The exhibition includes “Praying Christ” painted in 1595 by El Greco and “Portrait of Don Miguel De Lardizabel” executed in 1815 by Goya. An oval room on this floor includes paintings by Van Dyck and Peter Paul Reubens.