DOI issue:
Nr. 3
DOI article:Artykuły
DOI article:Wardzyński, Michał: Rzeźbiarsko-kamieniarska rodzina Venosta vel Venesta, Venusta i jej działalność w 1. połowie XVII wieku w Chęcinach*
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70770#0481
474
Michał Wardzyński
disciples and followers. It should be, however,
observed that the latter works created in the 1630s
and 1640s did not reach any former excellence,
models of knights and females having undergone
clear typization, while the ornaments, e.g., ornamental
incisions characteristic of the Chęciny workshop
shown against spotted background having become
schematic and reduced. The up-to-date research into
the Chęciny sculpture has never expanded so
significantly the earlier output of the leading 17th-
century Chęciny stonemason workshops, however
the present article has demonstrated the potential for
a radical change in this respect after several decades.
As Chęciny lacked a bricklayers and stone-
masons’ guild, it did not have any typical systems
organizing the work of sculptors and stonemasons,
additionally regulating the number and composition
of workshop workers, namely the numerous clauses
of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. This unres-
tricted development of craftsmen body was thus
accompanied by a relatively unlimited flow of free
stonemason journeymen from one workshop to
another, depending on the tasks assigned to them by
their superiors. This is confirmed through a formal-
stylistic analysis of the Chęciny historical sculptures
from the 1st half of the 17th century, including those
by the ‘Master of Straightened Figures’, ‘Master of
Pointed Beards’, and Augustin van Oyen, which
makes one inclined to consider them in their vast
majority to be collective works, executed with the
contribution of as many as several stonemasons at a
time carried out under the auspices of the three afore-
mentioned masters heading extensive workshops and
having their respective share in the market.
A very peculiar style of the Chęciny small
architectural forms and sculpture from the 1st half of
the 17th century constitutes a creative fusion of the
16th-century tradition of the Italian Renaissance
sculpture in Cracow and Pińczów (compositional
types of monuments and figures in post-Sansovino
poses by Bartholomeo Berecci da Pontassieve and
Gianmaria Mosca called II Padovano) with a strong
Dutch stylistic component (particularly visible in the
unnatural stiffness of the figures of the deceased and
ornamentation after the graphic patterns of Cornelis
Floris de Vriendt and Hans Vredeman de Vries).
Before Chęciny, Dutch motifs had been introduced
in the nearby centre of Pińczów, famous in the 16th
century, following which they became present in
Chęciny, this owing to the Flemish Augustin van
Oyen and Bartholomeo and Sebastian Venosta,
educated probably on the models of Alexander
Colijn (of Mechelen), and present in Innsbruck and
Tyrol. Apparently, such a formula was not most
greatly appreciated in the circles of the capital city
of Cracow, at the time already focused on the early
Baroque models inflowing from Rome, Lombardy,
and Ticino (southern Switzerland), yet it proved
more appealing in Greater Poland, Kuyavia, the
Łęczyca and Sieradz Provinces, as well as in
Mazovia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where
Dutch influence was stronger and where the output
of the Chęciny workshops in the 1610-20s and in the
1630s-50s successfully rivalled the best imports of
Dutch and German sculptors from the grand centres
of Gdańsk, Elbląg, and Toruń. It was there that over
20 major works (tombstones, epitaphs, and altars)
by the ‘Master of Straightened Figures’ and ‘Master
of Pointed Beards’, namely Bartholomeo and
Sebastian Venosta, were sent.
It has to borne in mind, however, that neither of
the Venosta seniors was a precursor of figural
sculpture hewn in the ‘Chęciny marble’ - the genesis
of their individual manner should be sought in the
works, created a decade earlier, by the Pińczów
masters from the circles of Santi Gucci and Thomas
Nikiel, first of all among the relatives of the latter:
Malcher (his family name unknown) and Michael
Werner. The Venostas first of all followed them in the
models of figures in the traditional post-Sansovino
pose and kneeling, as well as in a type of a Renais-
sance plate armour, fully encasing the legs, and also in
an outdated in ca. 1600 spearman beaver or a modem
hussar basinet.
In view of all the presented formal and stylistic
analogies it can be assumed that prior to 1608-14 both
representatives of that south-western Tyrolean
sculptor family of Venosta established in Chęciny a
workshop flourishing until 1639, while their out-
standing accomplishments spread the centre’s fame
throughout the whole Polish-Lithuanian Common-
wealth. Such an impressive output, counted in tens of
executed works, as well as an unprecedented vast
territory of their activity, comparable only with the
territory of the influence of the concurrently active
sculpture-masonry and construction shop of the
Flemish Willem and Abraham van den Block operat-
ing in Hanseatic Gdansk, places the Venosta Chęciny
workshop among the most important sculpture
workshops of the modem era in the Crown territories.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska
Michał Wardzyński
disciples and followers. It should be, however,
observed that the latter works created in the 1630s
and 1640s did not reach any former excellence,
models of knights and females having undergone
clear typization, while the ornaments, e.g., ornamental
incisions characteristic of the Chęciny workshop
shown against spotted background having become
schematic and reduced. The up-to-date research into
the Chęciny sculpture has never expanded so
significantly the earlier output of the leading 17th-
century Chęciny stonemason workshops, however
the present article has demonstrated the potential for
a radical change in this respect after several decades.
As Chęciny lacked a bricklayers and stone-
masons’ guild, it did not have any typical systems
organizing the work of sculptors and stonemasons,
additionally regulating the number and composition
of workshop workers, namely the numerous clauses
of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. This unres-
tricted development of craftsmen body was thus
accompanied by a relatively unlimited flow of free
stonemason journeymen from one workshop to
another, depending on the tasks assigned to them by
their superiors. This is confirmed through a formal-
stylistic analysis of the Chęciny historical sculptures
from the 1st half of the 17th century, including those
by the ‘Master of Straightened Figures’, ‘Master of
Pointed Beards’, and Augustin van Oyen, which
makes one inclined to consider them in their vast
majority to be collective works, executed with the
contribution of as many as several stonemasons at a
time carried out under the auspices of the three afore-
mentioned masters heading extensive workshops and
having their respective share in the market.
A very peculiar style of the Chęciny small
architectural forms and sculpture from the 1st half of
the 17th century constitutes a creative fusion of the
16th-century tradition of the Italian Renaissance
sculpture in Cracow and Pińczów (compositional
types of monuments and figures in post-Sansovino
poses by Bartholomeo Berecci da Pontassieve and
Gianmaria Mosca called II Padovano) with a strong
Dutch stylistic component (particularly visible in the
unnatural stiffness of the figures of the deceased and
ornamentation after the graphic patterns of Cornelis
Floris de Vriendt and Hans Vredeman de Vries).
Before Chęciny, Dutch motifs had been introduced
in the nearby centre of Pińczów, famous in the 16th
century, following which they became present in
Chęciny, this owing to the Flemish Augustin van
Oyen and Bartholomeo and Sebastian Venosta,
educated probably on the models of Alexander
Colijn (of Mechelen), and present in Innsbruck and
Tyrol. Apparently, such a formula was not most
greatly appreciated in the circles of the capital city
of Cracow, at the time already focused on the early
Baroque models inflowing from Rome, Lombardy,
and Ticino (southern Switzerland), yet it proved
more appealing in Greater Poland, Kuyavia, the
Łęczyca and Sieradz Provinces, as well as in
Mazovia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where
Dutch influence was stronger and where the output
of the Chęciny workshops in the 1610-20s and in the
1630s-50s successfully rivalled the best imports of
Dutch and German sculptors from the grand centres
of Gdańsk, Elbląg, and Toruń. It was there that over
20 major works (tombstones, epitaphs, and altars)
by the ‘Master of Straightened Figures’ and ‘Master
of Pointed Beards’, namely Bartholomeo and
Sebastian Venosta, were sent.
It has to borne in mind, however, that neither of
the Venosta seniors was a precursor of figural
sculpture hewn in the ‘Chęciny marble’ - the genesis
of their individual manner should be sought in the
works, created a decade earlier, by the Pińczów
masters from the circles of Santi Gucci and Thomas
Nikiel, first of all among the relatives of the latter:
Malcher (his family name unknown) and Michael
Werner. The Venostas first of all followed them in the
models of figures in the traditional post-Sansovino
pose and kneeling, as well as in a type of a Renais-
sance plate armour, fully encasing the legs, and also in
an outdated in ca. 1600 spearman beaver or a modem
hussar basinet.
In view of all the presented formal and stylistic
analogies it can be assumed that prior to 1608-14 both
representatives of that south-western Tyrolean
sculptor family of Venosta established in Chęciny a
workshop flourishing until 1639, while their out-
standing accomplishments spread the centre’s fame
throughout the whole Polish-Lithuanian Common-
wealth. Such an impressive output, counted in tens of
executed works, as well as an unprecedented vast
territory of their activity, comparable only with the
territory of the influence of the concurrently active
sculpture-masonry and construction shop of the
Flemish Willem and Abraham van den Block operat-
ing in Hanseatic Gdansk, places the Venosta Chęciny
workshop among the most important sculpture
workshops of the modem era in the Crown territories.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska