colored woodcut/paper; 44 x 43.8 cm (sheet)
in composition at top: IMAGE OF SWIETEY KATEARZINI; on the right: ON GVRE SINAY; at bottom, illegible inscription
state of preservation very good
LITERATURE
- J. Kieszkowski, Concise catalog of an exhibition of old folk woodcuts, Collected and published by Zygmunt Łazarski, Warsaw 1921, cat. no. 10, p. 23. W. Skoczylas, Folk woodcuts in Poland, Warsaw [1933], cat. no. 55 (repr.), cat. p. VI.
"At the feet of the saint lies Emperor Maxentius, by whose order she suffered martyrdom, as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism. In the depth, to the left, the beheading of the saint, to the right the deposition of her body by angels: "NA GVRE SINAY" (on Mount Sinai)". (J. Kieszkowski, Concise catalog of an exhibition of old folk woodcuts, Collected and published by Zygmunt Lazarski, Warsaw 1921, p. 23).
In the catalog of the exhibition of woodcuts from Lazarski's portfolio, Jerzy Kieszkowski emphasized that these were original works, reflected from woodcut blocks, and not reproductions. He noted that few examples of folk prints have survived: "Designed to decorate the interiors of peasants, they also shared their fate with them, falling victim to the fires and warfare so common in the Polish lands. [...] in even peaceful times, in everyday life, they were subjected to much more rapid destruction than other folk art products: under the influence of dust, sun and biting smoke, or finally, as an object of children's play, their colors faded or darkened, and the paper, often unprotected by the glass of the frames, tore, shrank and finally fell apart into shreds" (J. Kieszkowski, op. cit., p. 4). Kieszkowski also reports that "the woodcuts from "TEKI" [...] were imprinted by the publisher himself by hand (without using any auxiliary machine), on rag paper, machine-made from the years around 1840, intended for important files of the chancellery of one of the former Austrian offices in Lvov" (J. Kieszkowski, op. cit., p. 7).
Wladyslaw Skoczylas, an outstanding graphic artist and propagator of the art of woodcuts, noted in the early 1930s the importance of the publication in question for the history of Polish woodcuts and its extreme rarity due to the low circulation of the portfolio: "Except for the extremely valuable publication which is the 'Teka drzeworytów ludowych' published by W. Łazarski and except for a few articles in magazines [...] we do not have any more extensive publication on this subject. Lazarski's portfolio was published as a luxury edition in 62 pieces, quickly exhausted it could not reach not only wider circles of the public but even artistic circles" (W. Skoczylas, Folk Woodcuts in Poland, Warsaw [1933], p. 2).
