PRAGUE GUIDE

National Gallery collection of Asian art is housed in the Zbraslav chateau. It is not an extensive collection but an interesting one, and the city, even country, owes its respect and many thanks to a man named Lubor Hajek. He studied Religion and Indology at Charles University after WWII and was a self-taught historian of Asian Art, an obsession that started after his incumbency as editor for New Orient, a Czech magazine. In 1951 the National Gallery of Prague put Lubor Hajek in charge of establishing a new collection of Asian Art; acting on his own, he built a collection of over 12, 000 pieces and wrote numerous philosophical essays comparing the evolution of Asian Art and European Art. Unfortunately he was the last of the true Czech Orientalists, as his vast knowledge of Asian Art was unequalled in his peers and in Asian Art studies today.

To get there you can take a bus no. 129, 241, 243, 255 or 360 from the Smíchovské nádraží (Metro station, line B) to stop Zbraslavské náměstí. Gallery is Open Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Zbraslav in the southern outskirts of the city was formerly a settlement outside the city limits (short easy bus trip). Back in the 13th century, a royal hunting lodge stood here. King Wenceslas II had a Cistercian monastery with a mausoleum for the Přemyslid dynasty built in its place. The monastery was dissolved in the late 18th century and rebuilt as a chateau, currently housing the National Gallery collection of Asian art.