Portrait of Maria (Lupu) Radziwill in the works of the Polish painter Korneli Szlegiel (1851)
Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. X [XXV], nr. 2, Istorie. Muzeologie
Keywords: Polish painter Korneli Szlegiel, Maria (Lupu) Radziwill, frescoes of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church, historical and cultural heritage.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to critically review the visual documentation regarding the Vasile Lupu time that are of great interest for the Romanian and Polish historiography. We tried to compare some fragments from the life of Maria (Lupu) Radziwill with her preserved visual images. The groundwork of this scientific approach are illustrated sources of the epoch, in particular the frescoes in the Three Holy Hierarchs Church of Iași, which have been renovated during 1880s, and the portrait created by Szlegiel in 1851 that preserved the original images of the church frescoes before their renovation. Our study substantiates the authenticity and singularity of the Korneli Slegiel's portrait depicting the royal family of Vasile Lupu for the reason that it preserves the original appearance of the 17th century frescoes. Unknown drawing made by Korneli Szlegiel was discovered in the Warsaw National Mseum (Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie) in 2015. The images were exposed to interdisciplinary research, being examined from a purely artistic perspective as well as a cultural and historical point of view. The data of this study might be the basis of a subsequent reliable restoration of frescoes of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church.
List of illustrations: Fig. 1. Three Holy Hierarchs Church of Iași in 1845 (J. Rey). Fig. 2. Iași press chronicle on the activity of the painter Korneli Szlegiel in Iași (1851). Fig. 3. Portrait of Vasile Lupu's family in the Three Holy Hierarchs Church of Iași, by Korneli Szlegiel, 1851 (The National Museum of Warsaw). Fig. 4. Vasile Lupu's family, the votive portrait in the Three Holy Hierarchs Church. Fragments of frescoes recovered in 1888 and preserved in the Museum of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church, the Gothic Room. Fig. 5. The image of Princess Maria Lupu (Radziwill) on a fresco of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church. Fig. 6. Portrait of Tudosca and Maria Lupu (Radziwill) on a fresco of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church recovered in 1888. Fig. 7. Portraits of Tudosca, Maria and Ruxandra from the Three Holy Hierarchs Church, reproduced by Korneli Szlegiel in 1851. Fig. 8. Portrait of Catherine the Circassian in the Golia Church. Fig. 9. Embroidered portrait of Tudosca (17th century) from the Museum of the Three Holy Hierarchs Church. Fig. 10. Votive portrait from the Three Holy Hierarchs Church painted in 1884.
The item is the lower part of a leg of a festive table made of white and gray marble. In the upper part, it has a protrusion, similar to a Doric capital, on the horizontal platform of which a square recess is engraved, designed to fix the second part of the leg (upper). The lower part of the leg is made in an anthropomorphic style, and, in our opinion, there are two variants of identifying the depicted character...
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The item is the lower part of a leg of a festive table made of white and gray marble. In the upper part, it has a protrusion, similar to a Doric capital, on the horizontal platform of which a square recess is engraved, designed to fix the second part of the leg (upper). The lower part of the leg is made in an anthropomorphic style, and, in our opinion, there are two variants of identifying the depicted character. The first involves the image of the head of the young Heracles (Heracles - Ἡρακλῆς) (beardless), the most favorite hero of antiquity, wearing on his head the skin of the Nemean lion - Λέων της Νεμέας, a vicious monster from Greek mythology who lived in Nemea and was eventually killed by Heracles. The first labor of Heracles, of the twelve set by King Eurystheus (his cousin), was to kill the Nemean lion and bring his skin to the king. It is also known from Greek mythology that the lion of Nemea took the form of a beautiful woman in order to seduce the inhabitants of neighboring villages, who wanted to save the girl from danger. Upon entering the cave, a man saw the woman, who usually pretended to be wounded, and rushed to help her. When he approached her, the woman turned into a lion and killed him. Then the lion devoured the man, giving his bones to Hades - ᾍδης, the god of Hell, who lived in the kingdom of shadows. The second version of the anthropomorphic image interpretation suggests Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia in the second half of the 4th century BC, one of the most famous heroes of the Greek world, who sometimes is depicted as Hercules - wearing a lion's skin. Some researchers consider the custom of wearing the skin of a slain lion a sign of royal power. The word βασιλεύς itself, translated from ancient Greek, means "walking the path of the lion", that is, the king. This title was held by the Greek kings from the Homeric period, and later, starting from the 7th century AD - by the Byzantine emperors.
