Instytut Sztuki (Warschau) [Hrsg.]; Państwowy Instytut Sztuki (bis 1959) [Hrsg.]; Stowarzyszenie Historyków Sztuki [Hrsg.]: Biuletyn Historii Sztuki (78.2016)

Grupa portretów profesorów Akademii Krakowskiej malowanych przez Jana Trycjusza 245

The Group of Professors Portraits
from the Collection of Collegium Maius
Painted by Jan Trycjusz.
The Significance of Technological Research
in the Attribution of these Portraits

The 28 likenesses of professors in the collection of
the Museum of the Jagiellonian University
constitute a fairly numerous and homogeneous
group of modern-era portraits in Poland (from XVI
to XVIII century). All of them are portraits of
professors whose activity was of great importance
to Cracow's Alma Mater. Due to their symbolic
content and the stylistic features which most of
them shares, they form a separate group in the
Polish portrait painting. The studies of the portraits
were carried out by an art historian, a historian, by
conservators, physicists and chemists - researchers
from the Jagiellonian University and the Academy
of Fine Arts in Krakow.
In the course of the works this set was divided
into nine groups. This classification appeared to be

very helpful in the research. One of the most
important and interesting discoveries happened in
the group eight. It was the discovery of a signature
on the portrait of Wojciech Dąbrowski, painted by
the well-known Polish artist, active in Cracow, Jan
Trycjusz (?-1692). After this discovery the others
portraits from this same group were becoming
similar to this one - to Dąbrowski's portrait.
Chemical, physical and technological tests were
conducted and they provided information which
considered together with archival information and
knowledge of the art historian allowed to attribute
these portraits to one painter - to Jan Trycjusz. To
present the process of achieving this attribution
underlining the significance of technological tests in
it - is the subject of this article.