Designs for the chasuble decorations by Stanisław Wyspiański and Józef Mehoffer

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been a significant intensification of research on liturgical vestments stored in Polish collections - however, they mainly focus on medieval and modern vestments. There are still few studies on paraments from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article concerns the designs of decorations for chasubles from this period and focuses on the works of Stanisław Wyspiański and Józef Mehoffer. Among the lots of the auction held at Silesian Auction House on 17 September 1999, was a drawing of The Adoration of the Child Jesus by Wyspiański (charcoal on tracing paper), signed with the tied monogram SW and the date 1893. Almost identical to Wyspiański’s (in the upper part) is a divided design for a chausable by Józef Mehoffer., offered at the 2015 auction at Rempex Auction House. While in Wyspiański’s oeuvre the discussed design of the chasuble remains - in the light of the research to date - incidental, in Mehoffer’s oeuvre designs for the decoration of liturgical vestments appear more often, especially in his early works. The article compares the works of both artists, makes an iconographic analysis, focusing on issues of the technique and circumstances of their creation.