Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2019.3
Gothic polyptych from the Church of Our Lady by the Sea, in Trogir, and contextualisation of its scattered inventory
Žana Matulić Bilač
orcid.org/0000-0003-3613-6009
; Hrvatski restauratorski zavod, Restauratorski odjel Split, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The polyptych from the pre-Romanesque church of Our Lady by the Sea is dated to the 15th century and attributed to the circle of Dujam Vušković. Even though decontextualised, as is the rest of the inventory from the church, it tells us about the spatial, historical, artistic and technological context of its creation and duration as if it were still embedded in the high altar of the church inside the bevelled square apse for which it was made. The polyptych was removed from the altar in 1974 due to a number of factors that threatened it, and since then has become part of the permanent exhibition of the Collection of Ecclesiastical Art of St. Lawrence’s Cathedral, Trogir. Taking into account known sources, as well as discovering new ones, that mention the church and its inventory in relation to their properties today and focus on links to the polyptych and its historical modifications, we have discovered a large part of the historical context of its creation and duration. It now seems that, through every detail, it is still an integral
part of the high-altar apse in the church. This is the only place it can reclaim the dignity and meaning it recived when it was made, and which survived during the long and turbulent history of the church and its inventory, first described in 1579, and today scattered in Čiovo’s churches and monasteries, as well as the cathedral. Nevertheless, the restoration of the church did not respect any historical layer, so the real spatial context of the inventory and the painting has been lost forever. The integrity of its interior is evoked in reverse: by analysing the traces on the polyptych and other sporadic, scattered clues that include the initial gathering of historical inventory records, finding and recording its condition today, and its imaginary contextualisation using photographs taken before the restoration. In this way, we add the model of the reconstruction of complete historical stages in the interior of one of the many medieval churches with a similar story, with this particularly important and famous little church as a place where legends, votive prayers and miraculous healings are interwoven. In particular, the art-history attribution of 1974 to a painter from the circle of Dujam Vušković is analysed in the context of recent discoveries, including the results of technical studies, with analogies to analysed artwork from the 15th century in Dalmatia, and which can be linked to this painting. Furthermore, an overview and critical review of the conservation carried out on the painting in the 20th century is presented, and the model and course of a completed five-year conservation-and-restoration project investigating the technique and reconstructing the original form and painted layer of the polyptych, a work of art of Croatian medieval painting with the most extensive damage to its structure and surface, is described.
Ključne riječi
Gothic polyptych; Trogir; Čiovo; Church of Our Lady by the Sea; inventory; contextualisation; Dujam Vučković; conservation and restoration; painting on wood
Hrčak ID:
231762
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.2019.
Posjeta: 1.328 *