Convent of Saint Agnes

Convent of Saint Agnes tickets: which one to buy

The convent of Saint Agnes is no longer a convent; it houses the medieval collection of the Czech national gallery, and the ticket is a gallery ticket. That collection is the reason to come: Bohemian panel painting and sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including work by the Master of Vyssi Brod and the Master of Trebon, shown in the rooms of the convent itself. It is among the least visited major museums in Prague and one of the best.

The building stands in the northern corner of the Old Town, ten minutes from the square and well off the tourist route between the square and the castle. A combined ticket covers several national gallery buildings over ten days. The cloister and the gardens are free to walk and are open longer than the galleries. Lockers and a cafe are at the entrance, and the ticket allows re-entry on the same day.

Visiting Convent of Saint Agnes: what to see

Agnes, a Bohemian princess who refused several royal marriages, founded the convent in 1231 for the Poor Clares and entered it herself, corresponding with Clare of Assisi; she was canonised in 1989, days before the revolution, which Czechs noted at the time. The complex is the earliest Gothic building in Prague, put up when the style had only just reached central Europe, and it retains the plain, severe character of early Franciscan architecture: bare walls, narrow lancets, simple ribbed vaults and no ornament to speak of. Two churches and a chapel survive along with the cloister.

Members of the Premyslid royal family were buried here. The convent was dissolved in 1782, fell into slum use, was nearly demolished in the nineteenth century, and was restored over decades in the twentieth before the gallery moved in. The chapel of the Virgin holds the tombs of several Premyslid rulers, marked by plain slabs. The panels were gathered from parish churches across Bohemia in the nineteenth century and several were painted for altars that no longer exist. Labels are in Czech and English and the hang follows workshops rather than dates, which makes the development of the Bohemian style unusually easy to follow.

Convent of Saint Agnes opening hours and the best time to go

The gallery is closed on Mondays and open through the day otherwise, with late opening one evening a week. It is rarely crowded at any hour, which is the point. The gardens outside, laid out with modern sculpture along the river side, are a pleasant free walk and are quiet even in August. Prague is busiest from spring to autumn and over Christmas; the Old Town square is ten minutes away and a different world.

Winter afternoons are dark early and the galleries are well lit. Concerts of early music are occasionally held in the convent church and suit it. Allow ninety minutes for the collection and twenty for the buildings themselves, and walk back along the river rather than through the centre. The gallery runs guided tours in Czech at weekends and in English by arrangement.