Elżbieta Gajewska-Prorok

Stained Glass Windows from Grodziec. Part I

The group of 14 stained glass windows from Grodziec (Gröditzberg, Gröditzburg) near Złotoryja in the Lower Silesia provides an interesting illustration of Polish and Silesian monuments’ intricate fortunes after the end of World War II. In December 1945, one part of the group (8 panels) landed in Kraków. At first, it became the property of the Wawel State Art Collection. Then, it was transferred to the Jagiellonian University Museum, by which it is still owned. In 1966, the other part of the group (6 panels) was made over to the Silesian Museum, later called the National Museum in Wrocław. The stained glass windows from Grodziec constitute also an example of interesting issues from the fields of art conservation studies, museology and restoration.
The panels of stained glass from the beginning of the 15th century, representing Madonna and Child, Man of Sorrows, Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel, Apostles and Saints in architectural frames, became part of the decor of the castle in Grodziec, of a baroque palace situated at the feet of the castle hill and of one pavilion in the palace park. Gradually reconstructed from the beginning of the 19th century and then, in the years 1906–1908, rebuilt in the romantic style by B. Ebhard, the castle started being decorated with stained glass windows in the 1830s. Six sections from the group have already been exhibited in the rooms of the Kraków Jagiellonian University Museum for many years. In the course of historical research, it has turned out that presumably also other stained glass windows, currently belonging to the University Museum, come from Grodziec: twelve smaller sections representing the Passion and the scene of Saint Clare’s death, from ca. 1490, made in the Nuremberg workshop of Michael Wolgemut, and two Late Renaissance stained glass windows representing the figures of Saint Peter and Saint James, from a Rhineland workshop. The fourteen medieval stained glass windows of Austrian origins, coming from Grodziec and now belonging to the Kraków and Wrocław museums’ collections, currently undergo physical and chemical analysis. Historical research is also being conducted thanks to the financial support of the National Science Centre. Three sections from the Wrocław collection were already preserved and restored in 2013 thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, another three underwent conservation in the conservation studio of The Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in the years 2013 and 2014.
 

The group of 14 stained glass windows from Grodziec (Gröditzberg, Gröditzburg) near Złotoryja in the Lower Silesia provides an interesting illustration of Polish and Silesian monuments’ intricate fortunes after the end of World War II. In December 1945, one part of the group (8 panels) landed in Kraków. At first, it became the property of the Wawel State Art Collection. Then, it was transferred to the Jagiellonian University Museum, by which it is still owned. In 1966, the other part of the group (6 panels) was made over to the Silesian Museum, later called the National Museum in Wrocław. The stained glass windows from Grodziec constitute also an example of interesting issues from the fields of art conservation studies, museology and restoration.
The panels of stained glass from the beginning of the 15th century, representing Madonna and Child, Man of Sorrows, Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel, Apostles and Saints in architectural frames, became part of the decor of the castle in Grodziec, of a baroque palace situated at the feet of the castle hill and of one pavilion in the palace park. Gradually reconstructed from the beginning of the 19th century and then, in the years 1906–1908, rebuilt in the romantic style by B. Ebhard, the castle started being decorated with stained glass windows in the 1830s. Six sections from the group have already been exhibited in the rooms of the Kraków Jagiellonian University Museum for many years. In the course of historical research, it has turned out that presumably also other stained glass windows, currently belonging to the University Museum, come from Grodziec: twelve smaller sections representing the Passion and the scene of Saint Clare’s death, from ca. 1490, made in the Nuremberg workshop of Michael Wolgemut, and two Late Renaissance stained glass windows representing the figures of Saint Peter and Saint James, from a Rhineland workshop. The fourteen medieval stained glass windows of Austrian origins, coming from Grodziec and now belonging to the Kraków and Wrocław museums’ collections, currently undergo physical and chemical analysis. Historical research is also being conducted thanks to the financial support of the National Science Centre. Three sections from the Wrocław collection were already preserved and restored in 2013 thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, another three underwent conservation in the conservation studio of The Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in the years 2013 and 2014.
 

Stained Glass Windows from Grodziec. Part II

Until 1945, the panels of stained glass windows representing Madonna and Child, Man of Sorrows (Vir Dolorum), Virgin Mary and the Angel Gabriel (Annunciation), the Apostles – Saint James the Greater and Saint Andrew, as well as the following Saints – Erasmus, Wolfgang, Nicholas, Leonard, Margaret and Barbara, stored within the collections of
The National Museum in Wrocław and of the Jagiellonian University Museum in Kraków, constituted two groups of stained glass windows set in metal frames of ca. 235 x 177 cm.
The group of 14 panels is stylistically quite consistent; it undoubtedly comes from one architectural unit, perhaps from the church in Oberwölz. The existence of small differences between the ways in which the faces were painted or the figures got built allows to distinguish two groups created around 1425 and around 1430. Comparing the style and the technique of the stained glass windows discussed indicates that they were produced in Austria in a workshop operating at the border of Upper Styria and Carinthia. The nearest analogies can be noticed in stained glass windows from the „Maria im Waasen” Church in Leoben, the Maria Höfl Church in Metnitztal, a church in Tamsweg and a church in Gaisberg. The stained glass windows from Grodziec were restored and slightly reshaped (by the addition of inscriptions and frames of rhombus-shaped glazing) in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. The conservation and restoration performed in the years 2000–2001, 2011 (Kraków panels of the stained glass windows from Grodziec) and 2013–2014 (Wrocław panels) consisted in cleansing the works of numerous layers and of instances of „cold” re-painting, as well as filling in extensive cavities in parts of the figures’ trunks. As far as the Wrocław stained glass windows are concerned, the 19th-century frames of rhombus-shaped glazing were preserved.