Litomyšl Castle, a textbook example of the Italian Renaissance and a UNESCO monument, was built by Vratislav of Pernštejn in 1568-1581. Its other owners – Trauttmansdoff and Valdštejn – did not significantly affect the external appearance of the castle, but enriched the interiors with baroque modifications, stucco and painting decoration of walls and ceilings from the 18th century. A tour of the castle introduces visitors to the fates, hobbies and lifestyle of its former noble inhabitants. You can see a chapel, ceremonial salons, a large dining room, a billiards room, as well as private rooms and bedrooms. The pride of the castle is the theater from the 18th century with preserved classical scenes. The English park and the French garden with sculptures from the 18th century, located near the castle, are worth a visit. (Source NPÚ https://zamek-litomysl.cz/en)
Together with the company RENSPOL, which took on the difficult task of restoring the parquet floor in the study of Count Antonín I of Valdštejn, this time we will take a look at the Litomyšl State Castle.
Parquet repair in the workshop of count Antonin I. of Valdštejn
In the alcove of Count Antonín I. of Valdštejn’s study, the parquet floors were damaged in the past, probably due to leakage from the windows, so they were replaced with spruce boards. As part of the repairs carried out by PARQUET RENSPOL, the planks were removed and replaced with parquet replicas, cracks in the existing floor were also repaired to give the whole area of the room a uniform look again. „After removing the planks, we confirmed that these are not traditional plank parquets, but that the floor was probably manufactured on site already at the time of its creation. The entire area is made of maple chips with grooves for inserted pens and oak triangular fillings,“ says Michaela Reichlová about the implementation. „We also produced a replica of the floor on site using historic wood, we used hot-processed leather glue for gluing. There were a number of cracked and broken parquet floors and missing or loose parts in the entire area of the office, especially in the visitor route, which we repaired and added to prevent further degradation of the floor.
In the places of repairs, we also supplemented the base wedges and fixed them to the plank cover. On the repaired area and locally at the repair sites, we processed the surface of the parquet floor by hand with parquet planes, parquet scrapers and scrapers. We used natural pigments and parquet wax for local surface treatment. We are always pleased when our work brings a wooden floor back to life.“