Rysunek Franciszka Smuglewicza „Meczet Tatarów i ich nabożeństwo”: Historia pierwszego ikonograficznego przedstawienia meczetu i Tatarów polsko-litewskich
Watercolor by Franciszek Smuglewicz from 1785 “The Mosque of the Tatars and their service”: History of the First Depiction of a Mosque and of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars

Summary/Abstract: At the end of the 18th century, the first depiction of a mosque and of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars was created – a drawing by the popular artist of historical and religious painting of the King Stanisław August Poniatowski’s era and the founder of the Vilnius painting school, Franciszek Smuglewicz, “The Mosque of the Tatars and their service”. Made with ink, despite its small size, it shows with great precision the interior of the mosque in Łukiszki near Vilnius and the praying Tatars there. For a long time, it was dated to 1781, but in light of the current findings on the life of Franciszek Smuglewicz, the date of the drawing needs to be moved to 1785 or 1786. It is an excellent iconographic document containing many reliable details, such as the Tatar clothes, the imam’s outfit, their prayer gestures and items used during prayer, the minbar with forms borrowed from rococo church furniture, spatial arrangement of the prayer room, longitudinal division of the interior of the mosque into a male and female hall separated by a wall with a sight gap covered with a curtain, stripes stretched on the floor cloths used instead of prayer rugs, candlelight, prayer benches for the disabled. For the first time (and the only time, until the photographic documentation from the 20th century), publics who had no direct contact with the Tatars could come into contact with their religious practices and the temple’s interioring was not widespread for a long time. Along with twenty other similar views of Vilnius, it was included in an album that belonged until the 19th century to the Jaszczołd family from the Kingdom of Poland. In 1843, the Russian army’s lieutenant of the corps of engineers, Jan Jaszczołd (d. 1858), made it available to prof. M. Homolicki in Vilnius, described the contents of the album (but without discussing the depiction of service in the mosque). Jan Jaszczołd was a son of Wojciech Jaszczołd (d. 1821), a Polish painter and decorator who had been trained by Smuglewicz – this can explain why the album with views Vilnius was eventually found in Jaszczołd family. Later, the Jaszczołd album found its way to the collection of Emeryk Hutten-Czapski at the National Museum in Krakow. Only then (in 1912) the drawing could reach a wider audience, as it was published in black and white photographic reproduction. It is worth adding that the entire album, including the discussed view of the service in Łukiszki, was commissioned by Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski.

• Details
• Contents