Kvítkův Dvůr

This guide to Kvítkův Dvůr in Český Krumlov traces nearly four centuries of the courtyard's life as a working farm supplying the castle, from its first mention before 1347 through a Hussite raid that reportedly burned it in the 1420s. It then follows the sudden shift in 1750, when Duke Joseph Adam of Schwarzenberg gave the farm to his wife Maria Theresa as a summer retreat, and architect Josef Fortiny reshaped it with a tree-lined avenue straight to the castle garden. You'll hear about painter František Jakub Prokyš, brought in to decorate the new rococo hall with scenes of rural labor. Look up at that ceiling and consider who the painted figures were really made for.