Teplice Castle

Teplice Castle
Regional Museum in Teplice

Teplice Museum is  located in the premises of Teplice Castle on Castle Square, whose history started in the 2nd half of the 12th century when Czech Queen Judith founded "at hot waters" a Benedictine monastery in honour of St. John the Baptist. During the Hussite wars, the monastery was destroyed and consequently abandoned by the nuns. During Johanka of Rožmitál´s ownership, the monastery was rebuilt as a secular keep was built there which was further expanded by the subsequent owners, Volf of Vřesovice and the House of Vchynský, into a the castle. During the years 1634 – 1945, the castle was held by Clary Aldringen.

Valuable interiors were preserved, such as a hall with a painted coffered ceiling, a Rococo hall with rich stucco decorations and rooms with Rococo, Empire and Biedermeier furnishings. These interiors had seen several private visits and political meetings of European rulers and rich social life which were brightened by the prince Ch. De Ligne, G. Casanova, Goethe, Chopin, Liszt and others.

In addition to the tour of the historical castle interiors, the Teplice castle offers tours of museum exhibitions devoted to the pre-history of northwest Bohemia, the development of ceramic production in Teplice, the historical clock, spas, art of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods, as well as natural history exhibitions, antler corridor and numismatic cabinet. The touring area includes an inner courtyard of the castle, where you can find a unique exhibition with Roman relics and remains of the Queen Judith Romanesque basilica with a rare crypt

A library is a part of the Teplice museum, which holds almost 100,000 volumes of scientific literature and book collections. Books from the collections of regional literature, manuscripts, old books, bibliophile and facsimiles are sought out by researchers there. Two types of historical libraries are also managed by the library: the library of the Cistercian monastery in Osek and the castle´s library of the Clary Aldringen family, accompanied by a set of different editions of works by J.W. Goethe and F. Schiller. 

The Regional Museum in Teplice builds on a tradition dating back to 1894, when the Museum Society was established and on December 7, 1897 exhibited its collection in Školská ulice no. 17. Here, the museum was housed until 1905 and then moved to the Trade house in the same street (today the building houses the District Archive). In 1945, the museum collections were transferred to the management of the local National Committee, which in 1947 provided the Teplice castle buildings to be used by the museum. Since 2002, the museum is a contributory organisation of the Usti Region.

The Teplice museum's collections have been collected for the last 120 years and treasures have yet to be seen by the public are hidden in the depositories. The beauty of some of them could be admired by the end of 2017 at the Riding School of Teplice castle on a spectacular exhibition XXL, where the greatest treasures from all of the specialist departments of the Teplice museum that are most cared for by the museum’s operators will be presented there. You can enjoy the exhibits from biological collections, archaeological finds, various items of historical collections and rare books from the collections of the museum library. You can find out more details about the exhibition and other events as well as important anniversary information on the museum´s website or on Facebook.