Liběchov Chateau: a Place Where Scientists and Artists Would Meet

Before the middle of the 19th century, the Liběchov Chateau became a place of meeting and inspiration for, scientists, scholars and artists. Some would even find refuge from political persecution here. It used to be one of the important centres of the developing Bohemian culture. 

The company of scholars and artists was able to meet at the Liběchov chateau thanks to the patronage of the Veith family of landowners and entrepreneurs. This originally bourgeois family, originally from southern Bohemia, bought the chateau and estate in Liběchov at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The first owner of the chateau of the name Veith was Jakub Veith. He made a fortune with his weaving shop and supplying the army with his cloth; he was also a pioneer of sugar production from sugar beet. In 1833 Jakub`s son Antonín (1793–1853) took over the administration of the Liběchov estate. 

Thanks to Antonín Veith`s cultural horizons and wealth, Liběchov became one of the cultural and science centres of the whole of Bohemia. Antonín Veith was a progressive patriot with a social responsibility; he supported Bohemian school education and culture. At his estate he gave a job to painter of landscapes Josef Navrátil, painter of historical events Antonín Lhota, portraitist Antonín Machek or to painter of religious topics František Tkadlík. Among the sculptors commissioned by Veith was Josef Max, whose sculptures adorn the Charles Bridge in Prague. Thanks to Veith`s generous support, the chateau`s cook Václav Levý trained as a sculptor and became a renowned artist. Levý created monumental sculptures directly in the open air (e.g. Klácel`s Hermitage) on the Liběchov estate. 

Guests to the Chateau included historian František Palacký, linguist Pavel Šafařík, traveller Vojtěch Náprstek or local progressive priest, critic of celibacy and pioneer of modern viticulture Filip Čermák. The mathematician and philosopher Bernard Bolzano, a progressive scholar persecuted by both secular and ecclesiastical authorities, also stayed here. The position of the chateau librarian was held for one year by František Matouš Klácel, an Augustinian monk and intellectual disliked by the authorities, whose work is still interesting today thanks to his theories of human art originating in the processes of nature. 

However, after the middle of the 19th century the Veith family got into financial difficulties and in 1872 they had to sell Liběchov Chateau.

Jan KILIÁN: Dějiny Liběchova. Vydalo město Liběchov: 2016.

Karel STIBRAL, Ondřej Dadejík, Vlastimil ZUSKA: Česká estetika přírody ve středoevropském kontextu. Praha: Dokořán 2009. 

Liběchov Chateau (Author: RF)

In the second half of the 20th century, ethnographic collections were housed in the castle. (Author: RF)

Antonín Veith (1793 – 1853), patron of arts and science. (Author: )