GRODZIEŃSKA RZEŹBA JEZUSA NAZAREŃSKIEGO
The Sculpture of Jesus the Nazarene in Grodno

Author(s): Maria Kałamajska-Saeed
Subject(s): History
Published by: Instytut Badań nad Dziedzictwem Kulturowym Europy
Summary/Abstract: In the Grodno State Museum of History and Archaeology there is a verygood Rococo sculpture of Jesus the Nazarene of approx. 1740, recorded in themuseum’s inventory of 1923 with an obscure note that it came from one of nolonger existing local churches. It was found out, however, that the sculpture wasobtained from a local Franciscan monastery, where it had been labeled Jesusof Brailov. It represents a specific, well-known iconographic type promoted bythe Trinitarian Order, usually bearing the name of the place where there wasa sanctuary being the center of worship of the wonderful figure. In Grodno wewould expect the name Jesus of Antakalnis, because the point of reference forthe region was the Trinitarian church in the Vilnius district of Antakalnis. Itwas intriguing, then, why the sculpture was given the name of another wonderfulfigure, equally famous but located in Brailiv in Podolia, nearly 800 kmaway. The great similarity of the Grodno sculpture to the graphic representationof the figure of Brailiv, presented in a reliable-looking drawing of 1770,initially suggested that it was the lost original, but the hope was dashed aftercomparing it to the photo. Thus, the “Brailiv track” proved erroneous, and becausedue to the different hand position the sculpture cannot be regarded asa duplicate of the wonderful figure from Vilnius, the identity of the original isstill to be determined.The interest in the figure was also a pretext for presenting the constructionand later history of the church and monastery of the Trinitarians in Brailiv upto the contemporary times, among others an unknown measurement of 1834that shows the state from before the conversion into an Orthodox church.Zrealizowano ze

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