The temporary decoration of churches before the Lenten season formed an important part of post-Tridentine visual culture and was inherently linked to Catholic eucharistic cultic practice. The study focuses on the ephemeral decorations within the pre-Lenten Eucharistic Devotion in selected Jesuit colleges in Moravia and Silesia in the second half of the 17th century. The aim is to reconstruct the iconography of several ephemeral displays based on surviving written accounts and to interpret it in the context of the religious practice, imagination and social interaction of the day.

The study presents a newly found archive of the Seminar of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc, which maps a period (1948–1956) of the existence of this unjustly marginalized university institute of art history (1946–1956). At the same time, it tries to present the programme and specifics of this "forgotten" department of art history.

The present contribution is dedicated to one of the popular Baroque depictions of the Crucifixion, for which it can be assumed that we know its original typological pattern. This is a gilded relief attributed to Guglielmo della Porta (1500/1510–1577), from the property of King Philip II of Spain, located in the Escorial. The work soon became wellknown in central Europe as well, and in depictions of the Crucifixion its figures of the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist were then imitated for a long time and often. They also became a model for the young Anthonis van Dyck (1599–1641) in his early altarpiece on this subject. Van Dyck's "more modern" take on the original late-Renaissance model was then significant for the further development of this prototype. The work is then devoted to transformations in the understanding of both figures over the course of almost two centuries, during which, while their basic concept – especially their characteristic gestures – remained the same, the personality of the executing artist as well as the milieu and time in which the works were created manifested themselves. The ending of the Baroque also meant the end of the use of this typological pattern.

From the mid-1750s, Felix Ivo Leicher (1727–1812) was one of the most frequently employed Viennese painters in the Czech Lands. Considering Leicher's extensive activity until the end of the 18th century, it is quite understandable that it is rare to still find works as yet unassociated with his authorship. In addition to several recently found altar and easel paintings, more or less isolated in various places (Rajhrad, Vambeřice, Brumovice near Opava), also worth of note is a hitherto neglected set of some seven altarpieces, which he painted from 1761 to 1765 for the then newly built side altars of the monastery church of the Barefoot Augustinians in Tábor. In the place of their original destination, in the Tábor monastery church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, only three have been preserved to the present day, the other four, including the altar furniture, were moved to other places following the abolition of the monastery. In addition to these new findings, the examination of Leicher's work also brings about the necessity of making certain adjustment for works that were attributed to him in the past or were associated with his name (Louka, Tata, Lískovec, Konská, Korneuburg).

Based on the catalogues of exhibitions organized between 1930 and 1938 by the Moravian Art Association (Mährischer Kunstverein), contemporary journalism and sporadically preserved archival documents, this contribution attempts to present and evaluate the results achieved in Brno by nowadays mostly forgotten German, mainly Jewish, art lovers and collectors. It devotes attention to the genre and artist make-up of the picture collections they created, as well as the fates they shared after 1939. Above all, however, it focuses on the reconstruction of one of them, the small but carefully selected collection of the textile manufacturer Hugo Hanak (1880–1957), whose focus was the works of French landscape painters of the second half of the 19th century (Gustave Courbet, Eugène-Louis Boudin), in particular representatives of the Barbizon school (Pierre Etienne Theodore Rousseau, Constant Troyon, Charles-François Daubigny) and their German and Austrian fellow travellers (Heinrich von Zügel, Tina Blau, Olga Wisinger-Florian, Jacob Emil Schindler and Eugen Jettel). [Appendix II]

The work of painter Karl Joseph Aigen (1685–1762) remains a poorly understood category in Moravian and Austrian art history. In efforts to evaluate Aigen's oeuvre, emphasis has been placed primarily on the recognition of his skill as a painter together with his esteemed academic position, which served as indisputable proof of his qualities as an artist. The same emphasis is also shown in the partial research on many church commissions and his output of cabinet paintings. It appears that Aigen also made considerable use of his drawing skills, especially in the design of prints, which could have been an important addition to his finances in the early years of his Viennese career. He collaborated with many renowned engravers of the time on designs for prints with a wide range of iconographic themes. Aigen did not, however, limit his draughtsmanship just to designs for print production. An equally important category demonstrating Aigen's abilities is his academic teaching, which was strictly oriented towards the mastery of drawing. During the 1750s, the artist had the opportunity to help a number of the successors of the younger generation of painters to develop basic drawing skills.

In the archbishop's gallery at the Kroměříž castle there is a painting whose mysterious theme and very author have occupied researchers for many years. The painting recorded in the collection inventories as "Grosses Histori-Bild" or "Sterbescene" can now be interpreted as an iconographically exceptional work, drawing its theme not only from ancient Roman history, but also from the chapters of ancient medicine; on the order of crowned heads fearing for their lives, the latter attempted to create and perfect an effective cure for poisoning. This "istoria" became an example of a 17th-century artist's non-dogmatic approach to depicting an episode taken from the books of the ancient classics and their modern compilations.

The oeuvre of the sculptor Georg Raphael Donner (1693–1741) has long been considered a core component of the Baroque canon in Central Europe and has consistently drawn the attention not only of art historians but also of a broader audience. However, further investigation and analysis remain to be conducted. This paper presents a previously unknown contract signed by Donner in 1734 relating to the high altar of the new parish church of St Stephen in Jablonica (Slovakia). At that time, Donner was employed at the court of Archbishop and Hungarian Primate Emmerich Eszterházy (1664–1745) in Bratislava. Ladislaus Korlátköy de Laps († 1750) served as the primary patron of the church in Jablonica and was instrumental in commissioning the high altar. Although the altarpiece was apparently not implemented, the detailed contract is an important document for the history of the church in Jablonica and for an understanding of Donner's creative and economic activities during his ten-year tenure in presentday Slovakia. The contract demonstrates not only Donner's collaboration with a circle of artists close to the court of Emmerich Eszterházy, but also the considerable breadth of the sculptor's competence. This ranged from the supply of stone, perhaps in part from a quarry he managed himself, to the design of an altarpiece intended for the centre of the altar, as well as the provision of collaborators and subcontractors.

The study is based on information about the friendship between the painter Josef Šíma (1891–1971) and the linguist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982), exploring the extent to which Jakobson's impulse, as acknowledged by both, might have shaped the form of Šíma's work. This changed significantly after 1925 and expanded to include imaginative approaches associated with poetry. Did linguistic theory also play a role in these? Can Šíma's style, often associated with poetry, be clarified using Jakobson's linguistic analyses of poetry? In the comparisons which follow between fine art and poetry, it will not be so much a matter of motif or concept affinity as of analogies in the structure of poem and painting, as was clarified by the Prague Linguistic Circle, Roman Jakobson and Jan Mukařovský (1891–1975).

Zdeněk Rossmann (1905–1984) was a prominent representative of the Czechoslovak avant-garde between the wars, making his mark in several artistic fields from the beginning of his creative career. In addition to his central interest of architecture, he concerned himself with typography, book design, advertising, exhibition management, and soon drew close to the theatre as a scenographer. This study focuses on his post-war work in theatre, which has almost never been published. In the context of the time and Rossmann's own fate, it uses selected titles to reveal the basic principles of his work as well as the specifics of his collaboration with other personalities of the theatre world.