Dendrochronological Dating of Icons from the Museum of the Folk Building in Sanok
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GEOCHRONOMETRIA 26 (2007), pp 53-59 DOI 10.2478/v10003-007-0003-4 Available online at versita.metapress.com and www.geochronometria.pl DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL DATING OF ICONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF THE FOLK BUILDING IN SANOK MAREK KRĄPIEC and JOANNA BARNIAK AGH – University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection, 30-059 Cracow, Mickiewicza 30, Poland Received 9 November 2006 Accepted 22 December 2006 Abstract: Dendrochronological analysis was carried out for 13 historic icons from the collection of the Museum of the Folk Building in Sanok, painted on fir and spruce boards. Eleven sequences of the annual growth rings produced from the analysed fir boards were absolutely dated against the fir den- drochronological standard for S Poland, constructed by E. Szychowska-Krąpiec. Most of the analysed objects date back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, only one board was dated to the mid- nineteenth century. The dendrochronological analyses carried out prove broad possibilities of dating objects of the iconographic art painted on panels from fir wood, originating from south-eastern Po- land and adjacent areas. Keywords: dendrochronology, painting-panel dating, icons, Abies alba, S Poland 1. INTRODUCTION be solved thanks to dendrochronological studies of ob- jects of art and architecture from the Gdańsk Pomerania The traditional method of dating of the art objects is region. High convergence of the Gdańsk chronology with based on the stylistical analysis of the work, what some- the Dutch one allowed for absolute dating of the latter times proves to be insufficient. Repetitiveness of symbols and also confirmed substantial scale of the oakwood and motifs in art hinders precise putting of the analysed exportation from the Baltic Countries to Western Europe work on the time scale. In such cases the dendrochro- (Eckstein et al., 1986). In the following years a number of nological method is turning out to be helpful. It allows studies was carried out on paintings from various galler- for precise dating of felling the tree from which the paint- ies, often precising dating of the art historians, and in ing panel was made. some cases proving forgeries (Haneca et al., 2005; Klein, For the first time the dendrochronological method was 1989; Klein and Ważny, 1991; Läänelaid and Nurske, applied to determination of the age of works of art at the 2006; Ważny, 2001; Zielski and Krąpiec, 2004). end of the 1960s. To the analysis were subjected paint- In Poland, except the paintings of western masters ings of such seventeenth-century masters as: Philips made on oakwood panels, commonly encountered are Wouwerman, Klaes Molenaer and Cornelis Dusart, who icons, also painted on wooden boards. Earlier studies on painted on oak panels (Bauch and Eckstein, 1970). Later icons from south-eastern Poland, so-called Carpathian investigations were focused on oak painting panels of icons, dealt with determination of the tree species of some Dutch, German and English artists (Bauch, 1978; wood used for production of the panels and technique of Bauch and Eckstein, 1981; Eckstein and Bauch, 1974; making the background. Such studies were carried out on Fletcher, 1976; 1978 and 1980). The analyses of oak stylistically dated objects from the District Museum in panels of Dutch masters (Rembrandt, Rubens) resulted in Nowy Sącz and the Museum – Castle in Łańcut. The a floating chronology, which did not correlate with any of results obtained are pointing on wide usage of fir wood in the oak standards existing at that time. The problem could the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Kosiorek and Ważny, 1997). Moreover, these authors carried out den- drochronological analyses of 36 icons, which resulted in Corresponding author: M. Krąpiec absolute datings (Ważny, 2001). e-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1897-1695 (online) © 2007 GADAM Centre, Institute of Physics, Silesian University of Technology. All rights reserved. DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL DATING OF ICONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF THE FOLK BUILDING IN SANOK Fig. 1. Illustration of the way of cutting boards for panels of icons Fig. 2. Location of sacred objects from which came the dendrochro- (Type A – radial board; Type B – board tangential to internal incre- nologically analysed icons. ments; Type C – tangential board). Table 1. Additional information about the analysed icons and the painting technique and materials. Panel size Type of- Title (height x width x State of wood board cut- No. Origin site Painting materials (inventory no.) thickness) preservation ting (cm) (see Fig. 1) chalk and glue Jesus Christ Redemptor Ustianowa excellent, scarce 1 101 x 69 x 2.2 ground, distemper, A (2 739) (Bieszczady County) traces of insects silver, varnish chalk and glue The Last Supper unknown 2 54 x 102 x 3 ground, distemper, excellent B (11 844) (purchase) silver, gold, varnish chalk and glue Deesis Czerteż excellent, scarce 3 132.5 x 73 x 1.5 ground, oil, distem- B (14 207) (Sanok County) traces of insects per, gold chalk and glue good, partly burnt Jesus Christ Redemptor Czarna 4 110 x 78.5 x 2.5 ground, distemper, board, filled A (3 567) (Bieszczady County) silver, varnish cracks Saint Anna Rogi chalk and glue good, traces of 5 110 x 65.5 x 3 C (14 218) (Krosno County) ground, oil, gold insects Apostles James the chalk and glue Nagórzany 6 Younger and Simon 91 x 74.5 x 3.5 ground, oil, gold, excellent A (Sanok County) (857) varnish Entrance to Jerusalem unknown chalk and glue 7 37 x 26 x 1.5 excellent B (5 929) (purchase) ground, oil chalk and glue Crucifixion (fragment) Malawa 8 72.5 x 26.5 x 2 ground, distemper, excellent B (1 524) (Przemyśl County) silver, varnish chalk and glue The Last Supper Czerteż 9 62 x 75 x 2 ground, oil, silver, excellent C (14 194) (Sanok County) varnish chalk and glue Jesus Christ Redemptor Nagórzany 10 81.5 x 60 x 2 ground, distemper, good C (856) (Sanok County) silver, varnish chalk and glue good, scarce Transfiguration Malawa 11 104 x 65 x 1.5 ground, distemper, traces of insects, C (1 603) (Przemyśl County) silver, varnish cracks chalk and glue Saint Dmitrij Soluński Czarna good, scarce 12 805 x 59 x 2.5 ground, oil, silver, C (1 030) (Bieszczady County) traces of insects gold, varnish chalk and glue good, cracks, Lady Mary in Veil Trepcza 13 157 x 88 x 2.5 ground, distemper, scarce traces of C (5 900) (Sanok County) silver, gold, varnish insects 54 M. Krąpiec and J. Barniak The Museum of the Folk Building in Sanok stores an intermediate way, i.e. tangentially to some internal tree- impressing collection of icons from the fifteenth to twen- rings – see Fig. 1 (Kosiorek and Ważny, 1997). The tieth centuries, gathered in the 1960s, as a part of the boards forming a panel were joined together in such a action of protection the Orthodox-Church estate in the way, that they could not bend towards the painting layer, region of Podkarpacie. As dating of some specimens from what would have led to crushing the latter. Appropriate that collection with traditional methods turned out to be choice of the side of a painting panel guaranteed that difficult, the Conservation Studio of the Museum of the even in the case of deformation of the panel, the painting Folk Building in Sanok undertook co-operation with the layer would have only stretched, without having come Dendrochronological Laboratory at the AGH–UST, off. Stability of the panels was assured by wooden slats aimed at determination of ages of wooden panels with an (so-called schpongs), put in exactly fitting cuts on the independent method. The goal of this study was to apply back side of a panel (Onasch and Schnieper, 2002). This the dendrochronological method to determination of the technique of making icons assured the stability of the time of formation of selected historic icons from the panel, therefore even these oldest ones are preserved until collection of the Museum of the Folk Building in Sanok, present. for which the age determination on the basis of the stylis- tic analysis was ambiguous. 3. MATERIAL 2. WOODEN PANELS OF ICONS Dendrochronological analyses were carried out on 13 icons, selected from the collection of the Museum of the Wooden painting panels appeared in the West- Folk Building in Sanok. The majority of the icons came European art already in the antiquity. Moved aside in from sacred objects from the county Sanok and the Middle Ages, they came back in the thirteenth century, neighbouring counties: Krosno, Bieszczady, and Prze together with the influence of the Byzantine culture; at first to Italy, then to the countries to the north from the Alps. In the sixteenth century, canvas started to be ap- plied on a wide scale in Italy. In the North-European countries, e.g. Netherlands, however, painting on wooden panels was practiced until the nineteenth century, in spite of prices of high-quality wood rising from the seven- teenth century (Kosiorek and Ważny, 1997). In Poland, the Byzantine culture and the Orthodox- Church art appeared and developed in the south-eastern part of the country in the first half of the fifteenth cen- tury. This was related to connecting to Poland the terrains of so-called Red Russia (Ruś Czerwona – regions of Sanok, Lviv, Przemyśl, and Halicz) by the king Kazim- ierz the Great, and to moving settlers of the Orthodox faith to these lands (Szczepkowski et al., 2004). The Orthodox churches were usually decorated with individual icons as well as so-called iconostasis, i.e. a group of icons put between the main nave and the chan- cel. Depending on the wealth of the benefactor ordering the icon, native and readily available wood was used or more expensive timber was imported.