Rococo Treasures at Kvitkuv Dvur

Recently my husband and I were honoured with an invitation to look round the large courtyard farm of Kvitkuv Dvur on the hill behind Cesky Krumlov Castle. This is no ordinary courtyard farm - it was owned by the Schwarzenbergs, the Lords of the castle and provided produce for the Castle's heaving dining tables. At one point in the fashion of the time the chatelaine Marie Theresa Schwarzenberg decided to turn the farm into a place where she, like Marie Antoinette could play at farming. As a result Kvitkuv Dvur has hidden treasures.

We entered one of the main rooms and the owner opened the shutters one by one. With each shutter we gasped at what we saw revealed: a room with walls and ceiling covered with the finest rococo frescos. The frescos showed a series of scenes of the rural idyll – milking, the farmyard, a shepherdess, goat-herding, a man whittling, another gathering eggs (or doves) from a dovecote, and others.


On the ceiling the painting continues seamlessly with faux-balustrades from which people look down and a sky full of clouds and birds. This isn't the only visual joke the painter Jakub Prokys plays with us: at one point a card player is shown at full height (see photo). There is a lovely lightness of touch and humour in the paintings as well as a huge level of detail.


The tragedy of this wonderful place is that it is in desperate need of restoration. The owner is a doctor, who despite huge dedication and having putting every penny he had (and some he hadn't) into doing up the building, is struggling to meet the demands of his inheritance. As he put it “When the communists came they took it away from my family, then it was in good condition, now the state has given it back ruined, and I must meet the costs”. Such grants as are available are never given in their totality, but instead as a percentage for which he has to find the rest. Furthermore the grants are not given for the building in its entirety - so you can get a grant for the ceiling, but have to get a separate one for the roof, even though the latter directly impacts on the second.


I am sure this is a circumstance that is being repeated all over the Czech Republic. Our host is now under huge pressure to pay back the loans he took to start the restoration. He could sell up to a commercial operation which wants to turn the farm and surrounding land into an up-market golf course, but to do so feels like a betrayal of his forebears. He has a vision of area in front of the farm being the new site of the rotating theatre, which UNESCO is demanding is removed from the Castle Gardens, and the farm buildings forming the supporting buildings. But time is running out for him.

The rotating theatre

Regular readers of my blog will know my views of the need for UNESCO to protect the important historic buildings of Cesky Krumlov against the pressures of commercialism. I welcomed their call for an audit of historical buildings.

One of the conditions of World Heritage site listing was the removal of the rotating auditorium from its current site in the Castle Gardens next to the Bellarie Summerhouse, which was built in the rococo style in the mid 1700's. The summerhouse is a remarkable and beautiful building and the UNESCO argument is that it should be seen in its natural setting without the intrusion of a modern open-air theatre auditorium. As someone who has specialised in rococo gardens - I formally ran a heritage centre in Vauxhall, which was built on the site of Vauxhall Spring Gardens, the most famous of all rococo gardens - I am acutely aware of the rareness of such gems.

That said there are many fans for the auditorium in its current position. I would recommend that visitors to Cesky Krumlov make a point of experiencing the magic of a performance in the gardens, before we lose the auditorium from its current site. Throughout the summer there are operas and plays staged in the gardens and whilst the performers can be of varying quality the theatre works wonderfully in the setting. You sit on the raked seating under the stars (or rain if you are unlucky) and the performance takes place around you - in the gardens and on the terrace of the summer house. The 360-degree rotation of the auditorium allows this action to take place anywhere within sight of the audience and anywhere that suits the drama. We watched Dvorak's opera Rusalka and the scene moved from the court to the lake home of the water sprite heroine and back again easily with the turn of the auditorium.

If, as they must to meet UNESCO demands, the Cesky Krumlov authorities do move the auditorium, it is hard to see where it can go and have the same magic. I do think the auditorium is in the way of seeing the summerhouse properly in its setting, although sitting in the empty auditorium does give you a great view. I also think far more could be made of the summerhouse to enable visitors to appreciate it, for starters I would love to be able to look inside. But at the end of the day I do wonder whether some compromise might not be the best solution. When I was researching the Vauxhall pleasure gardens and their rococo structures, I became aware of the theatricality of the period - rococo is nothing if not artifice. The auditorium whilst not in keeping architecturally with its historic surroundings, undoubtedly is in terms of spirit.