DOI issue:
Nr. 1
DOI article:Artykuły
DOI article:Michalczyk, Zbigniew: Domniemane modello Augustyna Mirysa do obrazu Podniesienie krzyża w koś¬ciele w Bielsku Podlaskim
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71010#0024
22
Zbigniew Michalczyk
Supposed Modello for Augustyn Mirys 's Painting
Elevation of the Cross
at a Catholic Church in Bielsk Podlaski
In ca 1784, on the commission of Izabela Branicka
nee Poniatowski, Augustyn Mirys executed at least
three retables for the Church of the Nativity of Our
Lady and of St Nicholas in Bielsk Podlaski: The
Visitation after Federico Barocci; St Anthony with
the Child after Carlo Maratta; and the Elevation of
the Cross after Charles Le Brun. In the course of the
in-field stock-taking for the Catalogue of Art
Monuments in Poland, Bielsk County, in the Ortho-
dox Church of the Nativity of Our Lady in Bielsk
Podlaski, a small sketch-like oil painting (62><50 cm)
featuring almost the same composition as the
Elevation of the Cross in the afore-mentioned
Catholic Church of the Nativity of Our Lady and St
Nicholas in the same town was found. Unfortunately,
the Orthodox Church painting underwent a very
unfortunate conservation in 2005 which blurred its
original painterly manner, yet a photograph prior to
those works, the fact that the discovered work was
painted with the pigments applied in the 18th century
on hand-woven canvas from the 18th century, allows
to consider it to be contemporary with the retable
paintings in the Bielsk Parish Church. What matters,
however, is the juxtaposition of the model for the
composition (by Benoit Audran the Elder, after
Charles Le Brun), the painting from the Orthodox
Church, and the canvas from the retable in the
Catholic Church. The painting found in the
Orthodox Church features the figure that can be
found in the model painting, yet was not placed in
the large painting in the Catholic Church, this clearly
testifying to the fact that the Orthodox Church
painting must have constituted an intermediary stage
in the works on the adaptation of Le Brun's
composition for the decoration of the Parish
Catholic Church. This may thus be most likely a
work by Mirys - a very rare example of a modello in
Polish art, namely of a painting presented to the
customer by the painter prior to the start on the
commissioned work. There have been very few
pieces of the kind preserved in Poland: merely
several modellos by Szymon Czechowicz, Marcello
Bacciarelli, Franciszek Smuglewicz, Jan Bogumił
Plersch, and possibly one by Bernardo Bellotto. All
these artists catering to the tastes of the elites of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, boasted an
academic background, and were capable of indepen-
dently creating compositions. An assumption can be
made that these kinds of works were rarely executed,
since the most frequent basis for a contract between
the client and the painter-craftsman was a print
meant to serve as the model for the composition.
However, in this case the print model was sub-
stantially transformed: the number of figures was
reduced, their positions swapped, while the
originally horizontal composition was inscribed into
a vertical rectangle. It may thus be assumed that
Izabela Branicka nee Potocki wanted to see the
model of the painting she commissioned beforehand,
while the modello testifies to the creative process.
The circumstances as well as the time of transferring
it into the Orthodox Church remain unknown, yet
interestingly, the church had been a Uniate one until
1839, and the contacts of its vicars and the Catholic
clergy were very likely.
To conclude, also the painting titled Our Lady of
the Rosary dated 1898 and bearing the signature of
Ignacy Stelmaski should be discussed. The painting
manner as well as the facial features ofthe figures are
typical of mediocre sacral painting of the late 19th
century. The only thing that strikes is the com-
position, constituting a reduction and a minor alter-
ation of the well-known solution of Carlo Maratta,
popularized in the early 18th century with the print by
Robert van Audenaerde. This is such an extremely
untypical model for the production from the turn of
the 19th century, with the transformation consisting
mainly in limiting the number of figures and adjusting
the composition to the format of a more elongated
rectangle so typical of Mirys that one can hardly help
thinking that Stelmaski's work is but a copy or a
pastiche of an unpreserved painting by the first artist.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska
Zbigniew Michalczyk
Supposed Modello for Augustyn Mirys 's Painting
Elevation of the Cross
at a Catholic Church in Bielsk Podlaski
In ca 1784, on the commission of Izabela Branicka
nee Poniatowski, Augustyn Mirys executed at least
three retables for the Church of the Nativity of Our
Lady and of St Nicholas in Bielsk Podlaski: The
Visitation after Federico Barocci; St Anthony with
the Child after Carlo Maratta; and the Elevation of
the Cross after Charles Le Brun. In the course of the
in-field stock-taking for the Catalogue of Art
Monuments in Poland, Bielsk County, in the Ortho-
dox Church of the Nativity of Our Lady in Bielsk
Podlaski, a small sketch-like oil painting (62><50 cm)
featuring almost the same composition as the
Elevation of the Cross in the afore-mentioned
Catholic Church of the Nativity of Our Lady and St
Nicholas in the same town was found. Unfortunately,
the Orthodox Church painting underwent a very
unfortunate conservation in 2005 which blurred its
original painterly manner, yet a photograph prior to
those works, the fact that the discovered work was
painted with the pigments applied in the 18th century
on hand-woven canvas from the 18th century, allows
to consider it to be contemporary with the retable
paintings in the Bielsk Parish Church. What matters,
however, is the juxtaposition of the model for the
composition (by Benoit Audran the Elder, after
Charles Le Brun), the painting from the Orthodox
Church, and the canvas from the retable in the
Catholic Church. The painting found in the
Orthodox Church features the figure that can be
found in the model painting, yet was not placed in
the large painting in the Catholic Church, this clearly
testifying to the fact that the Orthodox Church
painting must have constituted an intermediary stage
in the works on the adaptation of Le Brun's
composition for the decoration of the Parish
Catholic Church. This may thus be most likely a
work by Mirys - a very rare example of a modello in
Polish art, namely of a painting presented to the
customer by the painter prior to the start on the
commissioned work. There have been very few
pieces of the kind preserved in Poland: merely
several modellos by Szymon Czechowicz, Marcello
Bacciarelli, Franciszek Smuglewicz, Jan Bogumił
Plersch, and possibly one by Bernardo Bellotto. All
these artists catering to the tastes of the elites of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, boasted an
academic background, and were capable of indepen-
dently creating compositions. An assumption can be
made that these kinds of works were rarely executed,
since the most frequent basis for a contract between
the client and the painter-craftsman was a print
meant to serve as the model for the composition.
However, in this case the print model was sub-
stantially transformed: the number of figures was
reduced, their positions swapped, while the
originally horizontal composition was inscribed into
a vertical rectangle. It may thus be assumed that
Izabela Branicka nee Potocki wanted to see the
model of the painting she commissioned beforehand,
while the modello testifies to the creative process.
The circumstances as well as the time of transferring
it into the Orthodox Church remain unknown, yet
interestingly, the church had been a Uniate one until
1839, and the contacts of its vicars and the Catholic
clergy were very likely.
To conclude, also the painting titled Our Lady of
the Rosary dated 1898 and bearing the signature of
Ignacy Stelmaski should be discussed. The painting
manner as well as the facial features ofthe figures are
typical of mediocre sacral painting of the late 19th
century. The only thing that strikes is the com-
position, constituting a reduction and a minor alter-
ation of the well-known solution of Carlo Maratta,
popularized in the early 18th century with the print by
Robert van Audenaerde. This is such an extremely
untypical model for the production from the turn of
the 19th century, with the transformation consisting
mainly in limiting the number of figures and adjusting
the composition to the format of a more elongated
rectangle so typical of Mirys that one can hardly help
thinking that Stelmaski's work is but a copy or a
pastiche of an unpreserved painting by the first artist.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska