The Night Watchman

Josef Lada’s beloved winter motifs gradually settled, from the 1920s onwards, into compositions to which the artist repeatedly returned in later years. The Night Watchman belongs among the earliest works in which he explored this now-vanished profession.

The snow-covered village lies immersed in deep sleep, whilst the dark sky, painted in his characteristic ultramarine blue, evokes a subtly fairy-tale atmosphere. The central figure of the night watchman walks through the street carrying his horn. His silhouette stands out sharply against the whiteness of the snow, and the trail he leaves in the drifts disturbs the stillness of the motionless landscape. He is accompanied by a faithful dog, which brings a personal dimension to the scene.

A particularly notable detail is the statue of a saint, where a lighter shade of Prussian blue appears – a colour Lada used only exceptionally. Throughout the village, only two windows of a house with a Baroque gable are illuminated, whilst the remaining cottages and the church remain submerged in silence and darkness. This is therefore not a Christmas Eve scene with a midnight mass, which was another one of Lada’s favourite themes, but rather an ordinary winter night that serves as a poetic and idyllic reminder of traditional Czech rural life.

The work was exhibited at the artist’s retrospective exhibition at SVU Mánes in Prague (Exhibition of Josef Lada, SVU Mánes, Prague, 17 January – 16 February 1941), as confirmed by the stamp on the reverse. It comes from the collection of the composer, conductor and journalist Jaroslav Křička.

The painting was examined in consultation with Prof. J. Zemina and PhDr. R. Michalová, PhD. An expert opinion of PhDr. P. Pečinková, CSc., is attached (quoted: “[…] It represents one of the earliest painted versions of the Night Watchman motif, which was later followed by an extensive cycle of paintings developing the same theme. Stylistically, it relates to the first independent compositions from the late 1920s, when Lada was searching for his own distinctive painterly expression, whilst remaining faithful to his proven technique of pen drawing coloured with watercolour. […]”).