Przyczynek do historii niezachowanej kolekcji Michaliny z Dziekońskich Zaleskiej (katalog rysunków ze zbiorów Biblioteki Narodowej)

• Authors: Agata Pietrzak

Title variants

EN

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE UNPRESERVED COLLECTION OF MICHALINA ZALESKA NEE DZIEKOŃSKA (PICTURE DIRECTORY FROM THE COLLECTION OF NATIONAL LIBRARY OF POLAND)

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Amongst all the memorabilia gathered by Michalina Zaleska nee Dziekońska were letters written by Frédéric Chopin and Józef I. Kraszewski, and drawings of George Sand, Teofil Kwiatkowski, and Cyprian Norwid. Unfortunately, most of this interesting heritage was destroyed in Grodno during the Polish-Soviet War in 1920. The archives that are kept in the National Library of Poland contain the most extensive information about the collection of Michalina Zaleska nee Dziekońska, allowing us to reconstruct a fragment of it. A picture directory of drawings which were preserved in this library lists 128 works of different artists and one sketchbook. In 1904 in Dziekońska's palace in Grodno, Zenon Przesmycki found Norwid's "writings in verse and in prose" and it was probably at that time that he saw and described "the great album with the cipher M.D. bound in grey canvas" from which most of the pictures listed in the directory are derived. Until now the continuing story of this unpreserved album was unknown. Based on the information given by Juliusz W. Gomulicki it was supposed that this album was lost in Grodno in 1920, but after researching the archive and analysing a few published references it was discovered that by 1930 the album was included in the collection of the National Library of Poland. In August 1939 drawings from "the great album with the cipher M.D." were catalogued and prepared for evacuation. Hidden with the rest of the National Library's collection they survived the September Campaign. Unfortunately they were burned after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, although two of Chopin's portraits by Teofil Kwiatkowski miraculously survived. The National Library of Poland also keeps four of Norwid's drawings, originally belonging to Dziekońska, and her sketchbook which were added to the collection with the heritage of Przesmycki in 1945. Random information scattered amongst different sources additionally mentions a dozen or so different objects from Dziekońska's collection (lost or kept in different public collections). Had it survived, "the great album with the cipher M.D." would be the most extensive and precious of norwidian books of friendship. From preserved photographs and reproductions we know what 28 of the album's drawings looked like, decriptions of the rest were given by the archive.

Keywords

EN

DRAWINGS; ROMANTICISM

• Publisher: Biblioteka Narodowa
• Journal: Rocznik Biblioteki Narodowej
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 43
• Pages: 167-233

Contributors

author

Agata Pietrzak

• Biblioteka Narodowa, Zakład Ikonografii, al. Niepodległości 213, 02-086 Warszawa