The story
On Petrov hill in Brno, a few steps from the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, the diocese keeps its museum in a canon's house. Its director names one panel as the main attraction. The Madonna of Veveří, a Virgin and Child in tempera on wood, was painted in the 1340s for a church below Veveří Castle, a royal castle northwest of the city. Scholars often link its unnamed painter to the Master of Vyšší Brod, the leading Bohemian workshop of the time, and the panel is counted among the finest Gothic paintings from the Czech lands.
For decades the picture belonged to the National Gallery in Prague, which held it from 1958, and over the years it was shown in Paris and New York. The parish of Veverská Bítýška, which owns the church, went to court under the church restitution law and won. In March 2016 the panel travelled to Brno under police escort in padded cases, accompanied by the parish priest and restorers, and it stayed sealed for one more day to adjust to the room before it was unpacked.
It went on show here on 16 March 2016 and now anchors the museum's permanent exhibition on the life of Christ, called Vita Christi.
