Review article
Two stone medieval heads in the Museum of Slavonia
Mladen Radić
; Muzej Slavonije, Osijek
Božo Prtoljan
; Hrvatski geološki institut, Zagreb
Abstract
The Collection of Medieval Stone Monuments of the Museum of Slavonia of Osijek involves, apart from architectonic elements, two stone heads. Although the heads were unclassified and lacked data on their origin and discovery site until recently, the handover record of 1971 suggests that the Regional Institute for Monument Protection rendered, along with other medieval findings from various sites, ’the head of a stone sculpture’ found in a medieval church in Voćin during protection works. The church was the prominent and now again restored Late Gothic Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since other field documentation includes no data on its discovery, the head is likely to have been found during clearance of the church and Franciscan monastery premises. Now there is the problem of determining which head was found in the Voćin church.
Katarina and Eufrozina, Nikola Iločki’s daughters and Lovro Iloćki’s sisters, had the church and the Franciscan monastery of Voćin (oppidum Athyna, Attina) built in the last decade of the 15th century. After the Ottoman occupation of Voćin in 1543, the abode in the monastery and church was terminated and the buildings were severely devastated.
The fragmentarily preserved and severely damaged head of Christ crowned with thorns was initially considered ’the head of the stone sculpture’ of Voćin because the other head with an ivy wreath was later found in the depot.
Analysis of the stone which the heads were made of has catered both for general data on possible places where the sculpture was made and for some specific indicators such as the way of deterioration and emergence of damage or the content of the white protective coating.
The attempt of iconographic analysis and search for closer analogies for the second, finely shaped head with a youthful face and curly hair covered with an English ivy wreath have not given any concrete results, just some indications.
The position of the head with respect to the fully preserved neck implies that this might be a full figure staring at something above(Christ on the cross, another person) or a head serving as a decorative console table. This issue has entailed different opinions in the paper as well as has its dating. Beside the common standpoint that this is highly valuable late mediaeval stone figural plastics, particularly if the lack of any evidence of the kind from the pre-Turkish period in eastern Croatia is taken into consideration, the head with an ivy wreath has aroused different opinions on its date of manufacture. The estimates range from the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century all the way to the late 19th or the early 20th century. In this view, one should bear in mind that the colleagues could get use of only photo-documentation. The author of the paper is more prone to the latter dates, taking account of the historical data. The views on a possible stylistic and temporal connection with the findings of sculptures from the later reign of Sigismund (the second and third decade of the 15th century) in Buda are also opposing.
The same can be said for the stone head which might be found in the Voćin church whereat slight prevalence is given to the head with an ivy wreath. Yet, certain conclusions require more specific data.
The fragment of the upper part of the head of Christ crowned with thorns can be, due its fragmentariness, only generally dated to the 14th-15th century period.
All the dilemmas and a relatively large range in the dating of the head with an ivy wreath once again point to the importance of keeping precise archaeological museum documentation since otherwise, even the most significant findings can be completely discredited in the professional and scientific sense.
Instead of a conclusion one needs to stress the rarity and the artistic and monumental value of the two stone heads for the late medieval period in eastern Croatia and hope that further research of the documentation of other medieval sites in eastern Croatia will ’dig up’ new data on ’the head of the stone sculpture’.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
217674
URI
Publication date:
29.1.2016.
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