Polychrome Painting in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul from Łososina Dolna
Author: Maria Ritter
Dating: 1960s.
The interior of the church in Łososina Dolna was decorated with a very interesting polychrome painting, the design of which was prepared by the Nowy Sącz artist, Maria Ritter (1899–1976). The vault of the presbytery and the aisle is covered with strips of floral and geometric ornaments in diverse colours. The central part of the vault in the presbytery is decorated with a work painted on a wooden medallion presenting Mary with Baby Jesus on a throne among clouds. At her feet, there is a model of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome and on her sides, two silhouettes of popes dressed in pontifical robes. Four figures of saints are placed around the medallion: St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph. A similar composition is presented in the vault of the aisle. In the centre is the Sorrowful Christ surrounded by four saints: St. Zorard, St. Kinga, St. Stanislaus and St. Adalbert. Positioned around the medallion, analogously to the presbytery, are silhouettes of, among others, St. Hedvig, St. Casimir and St. Dominic. The identification of saints is facilitated by their attributes. All the figures are presented in a manner characteristic for the works of Maria Ritter – they have slender figures, typical facial features and a sketch-like, synthetic character. The painter also painted the northern wall in the presbytery. She placed seven busts of saints against the white background in rectangular frames with concave corners. The polychrome painting was executed in 1966 by Zofia and Tadeusz Knaus, who copied the sketches of Maria Ritter and rendered her unique style with exceptional accuracy. At that time, the artist was engaged in the execution of paintings for churches in Limanowa, Grybów and the Church of St. Casimir in Nowy Sącz. Sacral artworks of Maria Ritter are very numerous. Apart from wall paintings, the artist also created altarpieces, stations of the cross, and polychrome coating of sculptures, and was engaged in conservation of sacral polychrome paintings, among others in Dębno Podhalańskie. Maria Ritter was a painter who experimented and changed the style of her works throughout her life. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts; in the 1920s, she went to Paris, where she studied under the supervision of Ferdinand Leger and met with Józef Pankiewicz and the Kapists. In her works, she moved from realism, through colourism, and eventually turned to sacral art and synthetic works bordering on the abstract, which characterise the last stage of her life. It is noteworthy that the religious works constitute a separate stylistic group. They are characterised by, among others, flat and simplified outlines, elongated silhouettes and contours. These features are visible in almost all of her sacral works, irrespective the time when they were created.
Baptismal Font from the Church in Cerekiew
Dating: late 16th century
Material: Pińczów limestone, wooden lid with polychrome painting
Dimensions: height 122 cm, height with lid: 189 cm, diameter: 64 cm
On the left wall of the aisle in the church in Łososina Dolna is a stone baptismal font with an openwork lid deriving from the disassembled church of St. Lawrence in Cerekiew. It rests on a square, profiled base which transitions into a four-sided trunk, bulging at the bottom and narrowed at the top and surrounded with acanthus leaves at the corners. Among them, at the bottom of the trunk, are palmettes with round fruits and leaves. At the top is a row of acanthus leaves, above which are rectangular panels set aside with a cornice with winged heads of angels under Ionian volutes. The semicircular font is decorated with an imitation of embossing – convex, vertical cylinders. At the bottom, they are delineated by acanthus leaves and at the top by a concave profile and a bull’s eye ornament. At the front of the font is an oval cartouche with the Jastrzębiec coat of arms. The lid of the baptismal font is a wooden, arched and polychromed crown decorated with diamond-shaped ornaments, cabochons and a royal orb at the top. Originally, the entire vessel was covered with a polychrome painting and minor details were gilt; however, apart from few minor traces, this decoration has not survived to modern times. On account of its structure, the Cerekiew artefact belongs to chalice-shaped fonts, which started to be produced around the 12th century. Earlier, baptismal fonts were large, very simple, barely hewn cylindrical, conical or four-sided stone vessels without any base. In the period between the 10th and the 12th century, they were provided with a support and a base, thanks to which they acquired a more vertical form, which was the onset of the chalice-like form. It derived, as its name indicates, from the shape of altar chalices; due to this, baptismal fonts of this type made a direct reference to its symbolic meaning. Through their appearance, they were identified with the chalice of the Last Supper, offering an augury of revival and a hope of salvation; their meaning and significance was additionally reinforced by the narrative presentations shown on the vessels. Thanks to the content presented there, the chalice-like form of the baptismal font is believed to be the fullest symbolic expression of the holy baptism, which greatly boosted its huge popularity.
The baptismal font in the church in Cerekiew was funded by Joachim Ocieski of the Jastrzębiec coat of arms, the contemporary founder of the church. The first reference to its existence is made in the records of a canonical inspection at the parish of 1598. In the 18th century, the old topping of the font in the shape of a tower was replaced with a new one in the shape of a crown. The form of the artefact and the applied decorative elements indicate that it was created in the Pińczów workshop of the royal architect and sculptor, Santi Gucci, or by one of his apprentices. The baptismal fonts executed by the artist and by the sculptors close to him have a number of joint features characteristic for this milieu. They had an identical form and shape with a typical stem bulging at the bottom and an embossed bowl. Similar decorations were also applied in the form of acanthus leaves, rosettes or angels’ heads, Ionic volutes and rows of small leaves. Numerous baptismal fonts located, among others, in churches in Niepołomice, Kazimierz Dolny, Janowiec, Sancygniów and Sokolin derive from the Pińczów workshop that operated at the end of the 16th/beginning of the 17th century.
Stations of the Cross
Inventory No. MNS/3889-3901/S, query No. 19092-19104
Dating: late 18th century
Material: oil/ canvas
Dimensions: 67.5-74 cm, width 51.5-62 cm
The walls of the aisle in the church in Łososina Dolna feature thirteen stations of the cross. They are not originally related to the temple, as they derive from the church of St. Peter and Paul (Kościół śś. Piotra i Pawła) in Tylicz. The paintings have diverse dimensions, and based on the stylistic analysis, it may be assumed that they were executed by at least three different artists. Simplified form and modelling, errors in anatomy and perspective, as well as local colour applied flatly clearly indicate that the authors were folk artists. The plot is set in the foreground; the background comprises a landscape with a green strip of ground and wispy tufts of grass at the bottom and blue sky with grey clouds at the top. Elements of architecture are visible in only three stations. Every scene has between three and five participants, and colours assigned to individual characters are applied consistently: Christ is shown in a long red attire, Virgin Mary has a pink dress with navy-blue maphorion, while the soldiers and executioners are wearing short blue tunics, green shorts and high yellow boots. A white banner with the number of the station is placed at the top edge of every painting. The process of formation of the service of the Stations of the Cross was very long. It originated from the Jerusalem tradition of worship of sites related to Christ’s passion. In 1320, the Franciscan monks were appointed guardians of the shrines in Jerusalem and they organised the sightseeing in the Holy Land for pilgrims, including sites related to Christ’s passion. However, until the 16th century, there had been no practice of celebrating the Stations of the Cross. Among the first services celebrating the Passion were the celebrations of Christ’s falls along the way to Golgotha and the worship of the stations or the detentions of Jesus, popular in western and northern Europe in the 15th century, which formed the genesis of the Stations of the Cross. The number of falls and stations changed, depending on the author of the celebrations. The model of the Stations of the Cross service are the 16th century works of the Dutch monk known as Adrichomius, where he distinguished twelve stations, in an order similar to the one that we know today, omitting the taking down from the cross and placement in the sepulchre. The practice of the Stations of the Cross flourished in the 17th century; nevertheless, it did not have a uniform character and an agreed number of stations. There was significant liberty in the latter respect: there were either seven, twelve, fourteen or eighteen stations or even more. It seems that adoption of fourteen Stations of the Cross is related to the activities of Spanish Franciscans. The form of Adrichomius’ service with the last two stations added to it was transferred from the Netherlands over the Pyrenees during the Spanish rule in the Netherlands and from there it spread around Italy. Solidification of the Stations of the Cross was greatly affected by the indulgence granted to the believers participating in such practice by the popes. Indulgence was sought by the Franciscans, who were also the main proponents of this service. They also promoted the version with fourteen stations in the special prayer books which they published. Since the beginning of the 18th century, the Stations of the Cross with fourteen stations started to appear in Franciscan churches and since 1730s, when a decree was issued to set them up in every Bernadine and Reformed Franciscan church. At the same time, Franciscans received a papal permit to set the Stations up in parish, monastic and hospital churches on condition of receiving consent from a local parish priest and bishop. On the other hand, the papal decree of 1742 forbade setting up new Stations of the Cross if they already existed in any Franciscan church in a city. The ban was lifted by Pope Pius IX in 1871, allowing for the celebration of the Stations of the Cross in all churches. Thus, until the end of the 19th century, they were a rarity in parish churches; they were set up only as an exception, with the special consent of a bishop as branches of the Franciscan Stations of the Cross. At the end of the 19th century, the Stations of the Cross service was ordered by the diocese authorities and thence the mass establishment of the Stations of the Cross was recorded between 1881 and 1913. The paintings with the Stations of the Cross in the church in Łososina Dolna dated at the end of the 18th century had to be created at the initiative of a Franciscan order and with the consent of the local church authorities. Hence, they belonged to a relatively small group of paintings made for parish churches. The absence of similar models, the artists’ lack of knowledge or ordinary negligence resulted in the fact that only thirteen instead of fourteen stations were made. Among the discussed scenes of the Passion, there is no painting presenting Christ consoling the crying women, i.e., station number eight. It seems possible that the poorly educated folk artists accidentally omitted this subject, at that time not being familiar with the full layout of the Stations of the Cross.
Figure ‘Christ on a Donkey’
Inventory No. MNS MP 753s, KW MP 8803
Material: polychromed wood-like mass, leather, metal
Dimensions: 151 x 136.5 x 75.5 cm
Placed in a four-wheel cart, the sculpture of Christ on a donkey is a faithful copy of a figure from the first half of the 16th century from the convent of St. Clare in Stary Sącz. It was made as cast from wood-like mass, resistant to weather conditions, excellently fit for items used and stored in variable weather conditions. The sculpture was made with the thought of recreating the traditional Palm Sunday procession in the Sądecki Ethnographic Park, commemorating Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem. It shows Christ dressed in red robes, sitting astride on a donkey, raising his right hand in a blessing gesture and originally holding reins or a palm branch in his left hand. The original of the discussed sculpture is one of four presentations of this type created in Poland and preserved to this day. The other items come from parish churches in Szydłowiec (3rd quarter of the 15th century) and Rzepiennik Biskupi (early 14th century – with only a fragment of Christ’s figure preserved), located in the collections of the National Museum in Kraków and the church in the village of Nowe Rybie from approx. 1520, currently kept in the Diocese Museum in Tarnów. The source of presentations of Christ on a donkey are Biblical descriptions of his arrival in Jerusalem. The arriving Christ was welcomed by throngs of people with palm branches in their hands, who spread their coats on the ground for him. The event is commemorated in the Church liturgy during the Palm Sunday, while the oldest description of this celebration derives from ca. 100 CE. In medieval Poland, the processions had diverse character: they could be held between two churches, they could be organised around a church or in the interior of a church. As was true in the rest of Europe, the mode of the presentation of Christ was also diverse: he was presented either as a cross, the Host, a book of the Holy Scripture, a painting or a sculpture. Given the small number of figures of Christ on a donkey preserved in Poland, they were probably not used often during the ceremony. The iconography of the scene of arrival in Jerusalem derives from ancient triumphal presentations, emperors’ entrances to cities and, slightly modified, became a part of Christian art. The oldest examples of such presentations date back to the 4th century and are located on early Christian sarcophagi. Depending on the mode in which Christ is sitting on the donkey, two types of sculptures can be distinguished: the Byzantine one, showing Christ sitting sideways and the Western one, where he is riding astraddle. The oldest preserved sculptures of Christ on the donkey, used in the Easter liturgy celebrations, derive from areas of Western Europe and are dated at the end of the 13th century. At more or less the same time, an iconographic model of such presentations has been formed: a large donkey would stand on a flat platform provided with wheels or handles for carrying it. Christ wearing a long robe sat on the animal, blessing people with his right hand and holding reins, a book or a palm branch in his left hand. In some cases, Christ is wearing a crown of thorns; alternately, his head is decorated with rays. Artefacts of this type were the most popular in German-speaking countries and over 160 of them have been preserved and of which a definite majority date back to the end of the 15th/ beginning of the 16th century, when processions with Christ on a donkey on Palm Sunday were very popular. With the onset of the Reformation and later the Enlightenment, celebrations using visual depictions of saints were criticised as a form of idolatry. Figures of Christ on a donkey then lost their popularity; in extreme cases, they were even destroyed.
Painting Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception
(Immaculata)
Inventory No.: MNS/3826/S, KW 18911
Dating: early 19th century
Material/ technique: oil on canvas
Dimensions: in the frame 134 x 95 x 5 cm
The left side altar in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (Kościół śś. Piotra i Pawła) from Łososina Dolna features a 19th century painting presenting the ‘Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary’. Virgin Mary, hovering in the clouds, is wearing a long white robe with a belt, a brown scarf on her shoulders and a blue overcoat. She is standing frontally with her arms spread, her eyes pointing upwards. The depiction has a number of attributes which are identified with the portrayal of the Immaculate Conception. Mary is standing barefoot on a crescent and trampling on a curled snake, while her figure is worshipped by small angels. The painting represents a very popular iconographic type known as the ‘Ideal Immaculata’. The presentation of the Immaculate Conception differs from other images of Mary by the fact that it does not rely on the texts of the Gospels; the Holy Bible does not explicitly state that Mary was untainted by original sin when Jesus was conceived. Some references were made to it in the verses of the Old Testament and in Chapter 12 of the Apocalypse of St. John, which were used by artists and theologians as inspiration. The theme of the immaculate conception enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 17th and 18th century in Spain and Italy, even though it was also present in the 19th century. It is interesting to note that the popularity of the artistic depictions precedes, by several centuries, the actual dogma about the Immaculate Conception announced by the pope only in the 19th century. The growing worship of Virgin Mary influenced the popularity of this subject matter in art. The iconography of the presentation was very rich, evolving from images of the Apocalyptic Woman up to the most frequently encountered Ideal Immaculata. The painting was purchased for the Museum from a private owner. According to the owner’s account, the work derives from the Polish Eastern Borderlands, probably the area of Stanisławów. The owner received it as a gift from an old neighbour as acknowledgement for her care. The canvas was painted at the beginning of the 20th century by an unknown artist and found its way to the altar in the museum in 2004. Originally, the altar featured a 15th century painting executed on a plank and presenting the Blessed Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus in a mode reminiscent of the altar in Piekary Śląskie, which remained in Łososina Dolna in the new church.
Founder’s Bench in the Church from Łososina Dolna
Inventory No. MNS/3878/S, KW 19070
Material: wood, woodcarving
Dating: late 19th century
Dimensions: 208x224x90
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (Kościół śś. Piotra i Pawła) from Łososina Dolna features a 19th century founders’ pew by the left wall of the presbytery. The four-seat pew comprises seats with front supports with pulpits and tall backboards. Both the pulpits and the backboards were decorated with an ornament consisting of semicircular blind arcades with a cut-out motif of a lily against a slanted grate. At the sides of the front support, there are two square pillars ended with bumpy pinnacles. The tall backboard has a decorative entablature in the upper part. The Polish name of the pew, ‘ława kolatorska’, derives from the Latin word ‘collator’, i.e., donor, which in the past denoted a patron or a founder of a church. Church founders were usually rich owners of landed estates in a given parish. They financed both the extension of a church and its maintenance; in exchange, they could count on a number of privileges. Among others, they had the right of presentation, i.e., submission of a candidacy for a church office or a vacant benefice (landed estate) by a church. As specified by the Old Polish Encyclopaedia of 1900: ‘Według powszechnego w Polsce zwyczaju, kolator podczas uroczystych procesyi miał przywilej prowadzenia celebransa pod rękę, w kościele miał zwykle w prezbiterjum ławkę kolatorską, a kapłan dawał mu do pocałowania patenę w czasie nabożeństwa, pomimo że to było przez kongregację obrzędów zabronionem.’ The founders had the right to place their burial plaques in the church, along with the aforementioned pews, intended to be used only by them and their heirs. The piece of furniture was usually placed in the aisle or in the presbytery, i.e., in an exposed location, close to the celebration of the holy mass. The pews usually had three or four seats and were decorated with the founder’s coat of arms or name.
Cholera Tongs
Dimensions: length 52 cm
Material: iron
When visiting the Roman Catholic church in Łososina Dolna, it is easy to overlook a minor yet very interesting item. On the side wall of the tower, there are tongs used during the cholera epidemic. They were used to touch the various belongings and bodies of people who were killed by the disease in order to avoid direct contact. In 1883, Robert Koch discovered comma bacillus and described the process of spreading of the disease, along with an efficient mode of fighting it. The symptoms of cholera include severe diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach-ache; without proper medications, it results in death. In the Sącz region, cholera epidemics broke out in the 19th century and took a huge toll. The disease spread quickly in the described region due to lack of hygiene and the bad sanitary conditions in which our forefathers used to live. In the imagination of local peasants, cholera and death were materialised as specific persons, while mind-boggling stories about them and the modes of avoiding them were still told to ethnographers as late as the 1970s. Cholera was imagined as an unknown woman or as a large lump hovering in the air and filled with red, green, yellow, blue and black strips. Wherever it moved close to the ground, many people died. Similarly, death was pictured as an unknown woman, who appeared unexpectedly at a place where later somebody died. Death would often be assisted by a man who was not aware of who he was dealing with. In many parts of the region, there are stories with slightly differing details about how a young boy would help an unknown woman cross a river. Having received assistance, the stranger reveals her true identity and trades long life for the good deed of the young man. People did not remain passive in the face of epidemics and death. One of the ways to avoid misfortune was to wear a small pouch with pimpinella, i.e., a plant containing essential oils with a strong scent; however, in the common opinion, the most efficient was prayer and the intercession of holy patrons. According to one account, during the cholera epidemic not one, but several deaths wandered around villages. They would come up to the windows, knock and ask what the household members were doing. If they heard that the residents were sleeping, nobody would be alive on the next day in such house. However, if the people answered that they were praying, death was lenient and spared them. As far as prayers go, the intercession of St. Sebastian was believed to be the most effective. The martyr who lived in the 3rd century died for his faith, killed with arrows. In later ages, an arrow that suddenly and unexpectedly pierces through the human body has become a symbol of a sudden epidemic, often identified with punishment and God's wrath. During a cholera epidemic, the believers asked for the intercession of St. Sebastian and a number of wayside shrines built with an intention of saving people from the pestilence or as a votive offering for having one’s health and life saved date back to this period. The testimony of these turbulent times include, among others, the wayside shrine of St. Sebastian in Podegrodzie, numerous cholera cemeteries, or an altar with an image of St. Sebastian in the church in Łososina Dolna, forming a part of the display of the Sądecki Ethnographic Park.
Money Box
Inventory No.: MNS KW 19069, EI/5514
Dimensions: height 97.5 cm, width 34 cm, depth 29 cm
Origin: Łososina Dolna, Nowy Sącz Poviat (powiat nowosądecki)
Dating: 19th century
The church in Łososina Dolna holds a number of treasures in its interior. One such treasure, a treasure trove of knowledge about the past, is an old wooden money box with metal fittings. The item is high and quite narrow; it is set on a square base separated from the upper part with two narrower sections. The base, the front and the sides are made of a single piece of wood, the back side is made of planks. The walls and the lid have fittings made of metal strips. In the middle of the lid, a narrow opening was cut out for coins. The treasure box was used for donations and offerings made by the faithful in the church. Money, such a prosaic thing related to our daily lives, was not such an obvious matter in the past. The basis for sustenance of the residents of the Sącz villages was farm work, while small-scale farmers who worked for the richer farmers most often received food products for their work. The money that peasants had at their disposal derived from sale of food products (among others eggs, cheese and milk) at fairs held in cities, or from additional, usually seasonal sources of income. These activities oftentimes included tasks performed during wintertime, when there was less work at the farm, for example carpentry, wheelwrighting work or weaving. Products which could not be procured as a result of farm work, e.g., salt, sugar, or luxury goods (beads, wall clocks and any other interior decorations, holy paintings and figures purchased in places of worship) were bought for money. Unfortunately, money could also be lost in an inn on alcohol or when dancing to the music played by a band of musicians. This is testified by multiple songs recorded by ethnographers, like the one below – one of the most popular in the Sącz region:
‘Zagrojciez mi krzyzoka
Dom wom za to szóstoka
Zagrojciez mi do rona
Dom wom za to talara’
So what were the aforementioned talary and the szóstaki? Following the partitions, the southern extremities of Poland forming a part of the Habsburg Empire had to adopt the currency used there. In the first half of the 19th century, the legal tender was the silver Maria Theresa thaler, minted since 1741, which was valued at two silver guldens. A gulden was the equivalent of 20 grosz. In turn, one grosz was the equivalent of three kreuzers. In the second half of the 19th century, the system was changed. The new gulden was introduced, known as the florin or the Rheine gulden, which was the equivalent of 100 kreuzers. 1 kreuzer was valued at 2 grosz. In 1892, the gulden was replaced by the crown which was valued at 100 grosz. In daily life, the Austrian coins had their common names and for example a ‘cwancygier’ was a silver coin which was the equivalent of 20 kreuzers, while in turn a ‘szóstka’ was a coin with a face value of 10 kreuzers. During the partitions, it was also possible to encounter much older coins, an effect of the virtue of frugality, taught to the children since early childhood, which were kept in hope chests and other nooks and crannies of rural interiors. Even today, the employees of the Sącz museum recount a story that when the money box from the Łososina church was donated to the museum, several boratynka coins (namely copper szeląg coins of King John Casimir, minted in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1659 and 1668) were found inside of it. This may also give us a clue that the money box may be much older than it looks...
Confessionals
Inventory No. 95/97 L and 96/79 M, KW 19066
Material: wood covered with polychrome paintings
Dimensions: width 180 cm, height 280 cm, depth 85 cm
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Łososina Dolna (Kościół śś. Piotra i Pawła) accommodates two very interesting Rococo confessionals under the choir. They are dated at the end of the 18th century. A semi-circular door with a decorative cornice leads to the interior of the confessional opening in the central part. An analogous cornice also tops the canopy in the upper section and the central opening with convex and concave cut-outs. The orange cornice was additionally provided with decoration resembling the structure of marble. Marbling, as this procedure is called, was applied very often, especially in Baroque art. What distinguishes these items is the very interesting figural polychrome painting devoted to the subject of confession. The painting is in warm colours, with a dominance of green and yellow. The polychrome painting decorates two confessionals; one of them was intended for women, the other for men. At the backboard inside the confessional on the left hand side is the image of St. John of Nepomuk against the background of a city in a painted, illusionist frame. The saint is a patron of the inviolability of the confessional and protects people from floods and turbulent waters. According to tradition, as the confessor of Queen Sophia of Bavaria, he refused to divulge the secrets of her confession and was sentenced to torture and thrown into the Vltava River from Charles Bridge in Prague. The side parts of the backboard of the confessional are also painted. On the left side, we can see a depiction of St. John of Nepomuk hearing the confession of an 18th century penitent in a nobleman's outfit. Above the scene, next to the line of the decorative cornice, is a fragment of an inscription: ‘Careless man comes to confession, and for his sins… will be dragged by the Devil into eternal fire’. On the other backboard, on the right hand side, a guardian angel is shown leading the penitent to confession, and above them is the inscription, ‘(…) confesses honestly. God forgives him his sins… Cheerful Guardian Angel takes him to Heaven’. Similar paintings also decorate the second confessional. Inside on the backboard is an image of St. John of Nepomuk in his confessor's outfit, standing facing the viewer with his hands folded in prayer. His figure is surrounded by an illusionist painted frame. St. Mary Magdalene is presented on the side board on the left side; she is kneeling and repenting in the desert; above her is the caption, ‘Look at the repenting Magdalene. Her face is wet with tears from crying for her sins’. On the right hand side is St. Pelagia, kneeling in repentance with a cross in her hands. Above her is the inscription, ‘(…) Pelagia lived in the world and she repented for it ardently.’
