Bon Repos, Baroque château in Čihadla, Czech Republic.
Bon Repos is a Baroque hunting château on the wooded Čihadlo hill (239 m) above the Jizera valley near Čihadla. The grounds hold a front New Castle, the ground-floor Old Castle with a nursing Madonna relief over its portal, a rococo Chinese pavilion from 1770, the chapels of St Jerome and St Simeon Stylite, and a pyramidal hermitage.
František Antonín Špork bought the Čihadla estate in 1715 and from 1718 built a hunting lodge with the chapel of St Jerome, consecrated that year, and a hermitage. After Špork's death in 1738 the site decayed until Archbishop Antonín Příchovský bought it at auction in 1769 and had it rebuilt and enlarged by 1770.
The site became a creative workplace in the 1800s when composer Bedřich Smetana taught music here from 1844 to 1847. His presence shaped the estate's reputation as a gathering place for artistic pursuits.
The property accommodates events with up to 200 guests and offers overnight lodging in the Old Castle section. The forested surroundings allow visitors to explore on foot the various buildings and grounds throughout the complex.
The Chinese Pavilion, added in 1770, has ceiling paintings with Chinese motifs from the same period. Two stone skulls once stood by the Chapel of St Simeon Stylite; they were stolen in the 1990s, while the chapel's two angel statues by Matthias Bernhard Braun are now in the National Gallery in Prague.
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