Congregation of Members of the Order of the Rule of Saint Augustine

Wenzel Lorenz Reiner

1689 – Prague – 1743

Oil on paper, laid down on cardboard. Sheet size: 32.5 x 22.5 cm.

Literature: Pavel Preiss,Thomismus contra Molinismus. Ein theologischer Streit um die Fresken von Wenzel Lorenz Reiner in der Prager Dominikanerkirche, in: pinxit/sculpsit/fecit. Kunsthistorische Studien. Festschrift für Bruno Bushart, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1994, pp. 187 - 195, ill. on p. 193.

Provenance: Private collection, London

The present oil sketch is a significant addition to the small group of oil sketches by the “greatest Bohemian fresco painter of his time” (1). It is a preliminary sketch for the aisle decoration of the church of St Aedigius in the historic centre of Prague, which Reiner completed in 1734.

The cycle consists of an Allegory on the Dominicans as Defenders of the Church against Heresy in the nave, which is accompanied by eight legends of saints in the aisles and further allegories on the walls. The present scene corresponds to the fourth (counting from the presbytery) of a cycle of four frescoes with episodes from the life of St Thomas Aquinas.

“ .... The female personification of Ecclesia [wears] a tiara on her head and holds a key in her right hand and thus has attributes which also identify her as [a personification of] the papacy and its dogmatic ruling authority. Above it, two saints are seated on a bank of clouds, turned towards each other and, judging from their gestures, engrossed in a lively debate. On the right, we find St Augustine indicating speech with his outstretched right hand, while he holds aloft his attribute of a flaming heart in his left hand. Seated on the left-hand side, St Thomas Aquinas is identified through his attributes of a lily, the golden chain with the sun symbol and the black cloak covered with stars. Thomas stretches out both arms widely as he presents his teachings to St Augustine ...” (2).

The oil sketch differs from the fresco painting and presents evidence of the tense disagreements between Dominicans and Jesuits in Prague, which led to a Jesuit inquisition prior to the consecration of the church in 1734 (3).

The most important difference is the figure of a Dominican monk, with tonsure, who points with two fingers of his raised hand rather dramatically towards the personification of the church. Quite possibly, this gesture could be read as a polemic against or criticism of the church. This figure is entirely omitted in the fresco and was replaced with the standing figure of a Carmelite.

“Only once the sketch was discovered did it become obvious that the composition of the - admittedly rather damaged - fresco [now restored], to which only little attention had been paid precisely because of its bad state of conservation, was in fact not very balanced - that there was something missing. It can therefore be concluded that the figure of the apparent representative of the Jesuit order was removed once the Dominicans had got wind of the news regarding the complaints made by the provincial head of the Jesuit order.

Once the figure had been removed, they could with a clear conscience deny any polemical tendencies within the frescos... The books, which according to the lettering on their spines are a Bible and a copy of the Summa, are placed on the lectern on either side of a crucifix - a detail that immensely strengthens the tone of the scene as a judgement of the church. Is it not conceivable that in the original version the writings were indeed those of the two quarrelling schools of theology?” (4).

In the fresco, the central figure of the seated Ecclesia is placed higher, more of her drapery is visible and she has a more solemn attitude as a result. The positioning of the hands of the second figure on the left has been changed, and the book has been omitted in the fresco.
A further, much published oil sketch showing The Dominicans as Fighters for the Church for the nave of St Aegidius can be found in the Städtische Kunstsammlung, Augsburg (Deutsche Barockgalerie, Inv. No. 6460).

Our oil sketch was discovered by a private collector in the 1980s and was authenticated by Pavel Preiss in 1990, who finally published it in 1994 (5).

“... in the course of the 1730s, a certain assimilation can be observed in the style of Reiner's works in fresco and oil ... Changes towards a fresco-like colouring can most clearly be observed in his two versions of the John of Nepomuk pictures in the church of St Aegidius in Prague and in Dobrà Voda (c.1735). The transparency and luminosity of his colours culminates in his painting of Duke Raclav showing his devotion for St Wenceslas for a side altar in the church of St Aedigius... (6). The 1730s are now considered to be Reiner's most productive period. He was a pupil of Peter Brandl (1668 – 1735) and Johann Christoph Liska (1650 – 1712). The latter exerted a decisive influence on Reiner, as is particularly evident in the fleeting ductus which Reiner adopted in his later works.

(1) Preiss 1994, S. 187.
(2) Preiss 1994, S. 190.
(3) Preiss 1994, p. 191 ff.
(4) Preiss 1994, p. 192.
(5) Preiss 1994, p. 187 - 195.
(6) Preiss 1991, p. 131.

Bought by a museum, Czech Republic.