Organised in partnership with Prague’s National Gallery, this exhibition comprises around a hundred works (objets d’art, sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings, scientific instruments, manuscripts, etc.), most of which were commissioned or purchased by Rudolf II for his Kunstkammer. The majority of the works come from Prague collections and the Louvre, but there are also items from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, and the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire in Paris.

In the art world, the Prague court is still associated with a paroxysm of late Mannerism with its sophisticated allegories, whimsical colouring and doctrines of artificial elegance. Its historical counterpart might be the figure of Rudolf himself: an aesthete and a neurasthenic emperor.

This exhibition aims to shed light on another, lesser-known facet of the art produced at Rudolf II's court. Alongside this ‘mannerist’ influence, there was a second ‘naturalist’ current: this included artists who depicted nature, whether they focused on capturing landscapes like Roelandt Savery, Peter Stevens and Paulus van Vianen, or on representing flowers and animals on parchment, as Hans Hoffmann, Daniel Fröschl and Joris Hoefnagel did, or on panels, as Savery did.