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"Aresztowanie" ołtarza Wita Stwosza : wystawa na Wawelu 1949-1957

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Walczy Ł.

Ochrona Zabytków

1992

issue 4

283-295

The magnificent world-renown poliptych sculptured in the years 1477-1489 for St Mary's Church in Cracow by Wit Stwosz was dismantled and and transported to Nuremberg by Nazi invaders during World War II. In 1945 it was secured by the American army, and in 1945- 1946 prepared to repatriation transport by Prof. Karol Estreicher, who was delegated by Polish authorities to revindicate the cultural treasures seized during the war. On May 30th, 1946, the transport reached Cracow. When the sculptures of the altar were in the country it turned out that they needed thorough conservation. The State Workshop for Conservation of Paintings, headed by Prof. Marian Słonecki, was charged with this task. The team not only carried out a complete restoration of wood structure (including poisoning wood-eaters and impregnation against their new invasion), but also, in the process of paint layers conservation, removed the repaintings from the 19th, 18th and 17th centuries, discovering Stwosz's original polychromy. This painstaking work was finished in the late summer of 1949. Thanks to warm sunny Indian summer the altar's main framework was reinstalled in the presbytery of St Mary's basilica. The sculptures were to be set out in October, November and December, and the whole retable was to be consecrated at Christmas 1949. Polish communist authorities did not allow this schedule to be realised. They ordered to leave the sculptures in the Conservation Workshop in former Royal Kitchen in Wawel, arranging an exhibition from fragments of the altar. The exhibition, planned as a close of the conservation, was held between June 10th and July 10th 1949 as a part of „The Days of Cracow" and attracted lots of visitors. This last fact, „public demand", was a perfect excuse to continue the exhibition and delay the return of the sculptures to St Mary's church. On the 2nd of October 1950 the exhibition was reopened without any negotiations with Church authorities and without stating the termination time, which actually meant that the altar was „interned" or „arrested" in Wawel. The exact circumstances in which this decision was taken may remain unknown, but its genera motivation can be guessed. The delay in the return of the poliptych to the basilica was probably an indirect repression against the Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Adam Sapieha, in the situation when the communist authorities which since 1949 tightened up their policy towards the Church, but refrained from attacking the Cardinal directly due to his age and authority. This indirect repression achieved its aim as the Cardinal did not live to see the altar re-consecrated - he died on the 23rd of July 1951. The archpresbyter of St Mary's church. Rev Dr Ferdynand Machay returned to the problem of the altar in nearly every sermon and interceded for the case with the authorities at various levels, but until the Polish October in 1956 the government decided about Stwosz's masterpiece as if it was their property; for example in 1953 some of the sculptures were sent to Warsow for the exhibition „The Renaissance in Poland". Not earlier than on the 13th of April 1957 was the monument returned to the rightful owner - St Mary's parish. It is worth noting that it was the second act of that kind in the history of the altar - the first one took place 11 years earlier, on the 30th of April 1946. In April 1957 it was possible to resume the work where it was interrupted in 1949. The conservation was completed very quickly. On the 15th August 1957, the day of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, the Archbishop of Lvov and Cracow, Eugeniusz Baziak, consecrated the altar restoring it to the Holy Service. That was the end of the war exile of Wit Stwosz's masterpiece continued by its eight-year-long „arrest” in Wawel.

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1 Ochrona Zabytków

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1 1992

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"Aresztowanie" ołtarza Wita Stwosza : wystawa na Wawelu 1949-1957