Founded in the 13th century, the Deanery Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary underwent a relatively complex evolution, culminating in a Baroque reconstruction at the beginning of the 18th century. Between 1704 and 1709, architect Tomáš Schopper built a dome decorated with frescoes by Jan Jiří Steinfels above the presbytery.

In 1894, Josef Šupich’s renowned local construction company carried out costly repairs to the dome due to its poor condition, but by 1909 it was discovered that the work had not been done properly; cracks in the sheet metal roofing had led to leaking into the wooden frame of the dome, which was completely rotten, including the tambour. Negotiations with the town council on the repair procedure began. It was decided that the imperial chief engineer Bohumil Šel would submit two proposals for the reconstruction of the dome to the town council, led by Mayor Eduard Šubrt as the patron of the church.

The first option was to make a copy of the dome in its current ‘silhouette’, while the second option proposed removing the dome and extending the roof of the nave over the chancel. However, in neither case was it possible to save the original frescoes.

At this point, when neither of the town council’s decisions seemed acceptable, the district imperial-royal conservator Zdeněk Wirth entered the negotiations and requested that “(the dome) not be dismantled; he proposes that every effort be made to prevent the removal of the dome, and that it be restored even at the cost of a replica.” Wirth requested plans and a budget for the construction of a new dome, and after an on-site inspection and discussion of the project with engineer Šel and the mayor, he agreed the old dome could be removed and replaced with a replica.

As an advocate of architectural authenticity, Wirth insisted above all on marking the dome with its current date. He described the copy itself as “a conscious historical and artistic falsification, which the new era is willing to accept in order to save the higher artistic unity, the overall silhouette of the town.” The town council approved the construction and at the same time excluded Josef Šupich’s company from the tender, as its poor-quality repairs had led to the destruction of the dome. The construction work was entrusted to the local builder Karel Ješin.

Wirth was generally satisfied with the overall execution, which he considered even better than the original project. Since the goal was not to create an exact copy but to preserve the overall form and mass of the deanery church, he welcomed minor deviations—mostly technical in nature—that reflect the period of construction. Although the original fresco (albeit repainted) was destroyed, at least some traces of the painting on the pendentives were preserved. However, according to Zdeněk Wirth, its removal significantly diminished the grand, ornate effect of the dome’s interior.