Matěj Blecha designed this traditional crypt for his brother Josef, the founder of what at the time was Bohemia’s largest construction company. Josef had grown up in a Protestant peasant family with his two siblings, Alois and Matěj, the latter of whom was twenty years his junior. In 1870, he established the family’s construction business in Karlín, where he later took on both his brothers as well. The Blecha brothers designed and built steam-powered industrial complexes such as sugar refineries, breweries, and distilleries. They also built a number of apartment buildings in Prague and elsewhere. As a member of the committee for the construction of the National Theatre, Josef worked on completion of that important building as well.

Josef Blecha also worked on funerary commissions, including the cemetery wall, entrance gate, and undertaker’s house at the German Protestant Cemetery in Strašnice. At Olšany, he contributed to the construction of the Waldek family tomb and the crypt of the journalist and publisher František Šimáček, among others.

His own grave monument – which is distinctly less Art Nouveau in style than the one erected for his brother Alois just two years later – was designed by the youngest Blecha brother, the architect Matěj Blecha, who took over the family business after the passing of his two older brothers. Affixed to the upper part of the black diorite stele is a bronze plaque with a portrait of the deceased framed by flower garlands. The monument is signed by the stonemason and sculptor. As in Alois’s case, the gravestone was originally topped by a bronze chalice and was flanked by stone vases adorned with a delicate metal vegetative ornament. These and other minor metalwork details have been irretrievably lost.