Kinsky's funeral chapel in Budenice, Funeral chapel in Budenice, Czech Republic.
Kinsky's funeral chapel in Budenice is a late classicist chapel on a Greek cross plan, partly sunk below ground, with a glazed dome over the crossing and a narrower eastern entrance bay, so the whole reads as a Latin cross. Half-round radially divided windows close the north, south and west arms. The sandstone figures flanking the entrance are by Josef Max: Thanatos with an extinguished torch, and History writing the name Rudolph.
Built between 1836 and 1841, the chapel was commissioned by Wilhelmina Elisabeth to honor the memory of Rudolf, the 6th Prince Kinsky, who died of typhus. The building was seized in 1945 and remained neglected for decades before being restored in recent years.
The tympanum bears the Czech inscription "Zde jsme, ó Pane, čekajíce hlasu Tvého". Before the entrance stand two allegories by Josef Max: Thanatos with lowered head, closed eyes and an extinguished torch, and History writing the name Rudolph on a stone tablet. Inside, the altar group shows Christ saving Saint Peter from the waves.
The chapel stands in the cemetery behind the church of St Isidore of Madrid, reached by a baroque chestnut avenue linking Zlonice with the Budenice chateau. The building is partly sunk below ground level, so the entrance front faces east and the interior is lit mainly by the glazed dome. Burial continues here, so visitors should keep to the aisles and avoid the marble grave panels.
The chapel holds 144 burial chambers, and burials still take place there today. The 2020 transfer from state ownership to František Kinský of the Kostelec branch was a change of owner, not a restoration; the essential repairs date from 1996–1998, when the owner, the Czech Republic, stopped water leaking into the interior.
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