dům U Zlatého jelena (Malá Strana) House

The townhouse called U Zlatého jelena is located on Tomášská street in Malá Strana. Like the neighboring houses, it has Renaissance origins, but its present appearance was determined by an expensive Baroque reconstruction from seventeen twenty-six.

In the Middle Ages, the plot here was under the administration of an Augustinian monastery at Saint Thomas. After the Malá Strana fire in fifteen forty-one, the plots were newly divided and new houses began to be built. The original Renaissance house was built shortly before fifteen fifty-eight by builder František Tondl. By the end of the sixteenth century, it was gradually expanded. In sixteen oh-seven, its back part was modified so that access to the monastery was enlarged. Around sixteen thirty-six, the house expanded onto the plot of a former lane leading to the monastery, but no cellar was created under this section.

A fundamental transformation was carried out in seventeen twenty-six by the then owner Jan Kašpar Friedrich. The Baroque reconstruction design is attributed to Kiliánus Ignatius Dientzenhofer. The house sign and busts of three emperors are probably the work of sculptor Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoff. The authorship of either one is not directly documented. However, the fact that both artists were working for the neighboring Augustinian monastery of Saint Thomas at that time speaks in its favor. Until seventeen ninety, further modifications followed, primarily the windows facing the Church of Saint Thomas were enlarged. Later Classical interventions were only minor.

The townhouse has a rectangular floor plan and a mansard roof. From it rises a large dormer window and on its gable stand three stone busts of Roman emperors. The three-story facade facing Tomášská street is decorated with Baroque stucco and stone elements, portals and profiled window frames. In the niche above the double portal is a house sign which gave the house its name. It depicts Saint Hubert's encounter with a miraculous deer.

Since nineteen fifty-eight, the house has been a cultural monument. It belongs to the Prague Monument Reservation, which is registered under the name Historic Centre of Prague on the UNESCO World Heritage List.