They claim that the artist is expensive restoration project During the joke, he presented the business with photos of his friends and acquaintances. The 600-year-old astronomical clock has long been a magnet for tourists, who stare in amazement as the Twelve Apostles advance the clock. It reopened to the public in 2018 to much fanfare after being valued at £2.1m renovated The medieval town hall and the intricate clockwork machinery were also modernized.
Among the attractions of the works was a reproduction of a 19th-century calendar plate painted by Joseph Mann adorning an astrolabe on a clock, depicting the months of the year as zodiac signs.
There was controversy over the artwork after a local heritage group claimed that its painter, Stanislav Jersic, deviated from the spirit and details of his 1866 painting by Mance and is currently kept in the Prague City Museum. The discrepancies, initially unnoticed, surfaced late after a member of the Old Prague Club complained to the Czech Ministry of Culture, which has now launched an investigation.
It was not a task to restore the original work
According to complainant Milan Patka, the breeding radically changed the appearance, age, skin color, clothing and even gender of the characters drawn by Mance. In one image intended to portray the Virgin, the original red-haired girl wearing a signature ribbon was replaced by a modern-looking middle-aged woman with gray or light-haired earrings. In another case, the character of a smiling Aquarius female was transformed into a man with short hair.
Gerchik also changed the original painting of Mann, which depicts a predominantly black dog, into a dog with brown and white hair and a high tail. An academic painter and renovator, Gersek is alleged to have given portraits of some of the characters to his friends, including award-winning Czech novelist Katerina Tokova. guardian.
Tucková admitted the similarity in a Facebook post and wrote commendable
First of all, as an art historian, I would like to note that it is clear that the task of Stanislav Jersic is not to restore the original work of Mann, but to make a copy and even a completely new work of art.