Issue of the commemorative postage stamp: Beauties of cour Country: The Červená Lhota Chateau
Červená Lhota is a Renaissance water chateau in the eastern part of South Bohemia in the north of Jindřichův Hradec region. The chateau is located on a rock which became an island in the chateau pond after the damming of the valley and the increase in the water level. The chateau consists of an enclosed four-wing layout around a square courtyard. Above the entrance there is a tower. An access road leads to the chateau across a stone bridge.
The stronghold was owned by the Lhoteč family of Zásmuky from the second half of the 14th century. However, the first written mention dates from as late as 1465: the Land Registry shows the division of the inherited property between Václav and Petr of Zásmuky. In the following years Lhota changed its owner to Diviš Boubínský of Újezd, from whom Jan Kába of Rybňany bought it in 1530 and had the old Gothic fortress converted into a more comfortable Renaissance chateau, known afterwards as Nová Lhota. He sold the chateau in 1597 to Vilém Růt of Dírná, who reconstructed it in late Renaissance style and painted its façade red. This is the reason for its current name - Červená, or “Red” Lhota.
The Růt family of Dírná acquired the chateau at the end of the 16th century. However, as they were Utraquists the property was confiscated from them after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, although they had not participated in the uprising of Bohemian noblemen. At the time of the Thirty Years’ War, it was owned by the Italian cavalry captain Antonio Bruccio. After his death the chateau was bought by Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk in 1641. After this year, and in the years 1658–1678 a reconstruction in Baroque style took place at the chateau which turned the aristocratic residence into a summer palace, where the Slavata family would commute from nearby Jindřichův Hradec.
After the extinction of the male line of the Slavata family in 1693, the niece of the last Slavata, Maria Theresa who married into the Windischgrätz family, inherited Červená Lhota. From the mid-18th century it changed owners again several times. Under Ignatius Stillfried, a composer and the co-founder of the German opera Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf stayed at the chateau between 1796–1799. From 1835, the chateau was owned successively by members of four generations of the royal family Schönburg-Hartenstein – German imperial princes. The family had lived in the chateau until 1945, when it was confiscated. The last owners had the chateau tower and gables reconstructed in neo-Gothic style. Between 1903–1913 these modifications were removed under Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein and replaced with a historically faithful neo-Renaissance construction by the architect Humbert Walcher of Moltheim, giving the chateau its present form.
The author of the design of the issue is the academic painter Jan Kavan, the engravings are the work of the engraver Bohumil Šneider.
The stamp, sized 26 x 40 mm has been printed by the Post Printing House in Prague by recess print from flat plates in yellow, pink, green, red and black in printing sheets of 8 pcs.
There will be 1 First Day Cover incl. commemorative cancellation. In the picture part of the cover is depicted a detail of the decoration of the facade. The cover is printed by recess print from flat plates in red-brown. On the postmark is a detail of the decoration of the facade and the text: Červená Lhota, 26.3.2014.
The stamp is valid from 26th March, 2014.
Czech Post
Příspěvky
