THE DECADE OF REVELATIONS Ljubljana, 2024 www.ng-slo.si Table of Contents Foreword Matija Jama, A View of St Nicholas’ Cathedral, (1936) Giambettino Cignaroli, Alexander the Great before Darius’ Deceased Wife Two Post-Mortem Portraits of Children by Pavel Künl Matija Jama: Archaeology of a Painting Landscape with a River Sculptor Franc Berneker and the Vidic Family A Medieval Story Written in Wood Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna Gora Janez in Jurij Šubic, Adoration of the Magi St Mark’s Gospel I.8 Anton Ažbe and his Black Woman: some new Findings Gems – Miniature Images in Stones Conservation-Restoration Treatment of the Decorative Frame of the Annunciation Altarpiece by Martin Johann Kremser-Schmidt Revival of a Banner by Jurij Šubic Jožef Petkovšek: Images behind Images Ivana Kobilca’s Still Lifes Herman Verelst, Portrait of Hans Jacob von Wiederkehr A Painter About a Painter – Hinko Smrekar’s Caricature of his Fellow Painter Ivan Vavpotič, 1927 Gvidon Birolla, Lady in a Violet Dress Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), the Last Patriarch of Monarchical Europe: on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Emperor’s Death Frančišek Smerdu, Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath On the Look and Meaning of a Baroque Painting in the Mid-19th Century Michelangelo Unterberger, Adoration of the Shepherds and Adoration of the Magi Queen of Prussia in the National Gallery of Slovenia Zoran Mušič: Transformations in Painting Technology Jakob Savinšek: Draft for a Monument to Architect Jože Plečnik The Tears of Achilles Cameo Empress Maria Theresa, the Ruler of the Great Austrian Empire and Enlightened Reformer Ivana Kobilca and the Kessler Salon Our Lady of the Rosary Altarpiece in the Church at Šmarna Gora and Matevž Langus’ Sketchbooks in the National Gallery of Slovenia The Ecstasy of St John of Nepomuk Gloria in excelsis Deo Destiny of a Painting Moritz Michael Daffinger, The Daughters of Cecrops Discovering the Infant Erichthonius, (after 1808) Gregorio Lazzarini, Rinaldo and Armida in Enchanted Garden, (c. 1690) The Problems of Restoration-Conservation of Banners and their Presentation Biedermeier Children Portraits Portrait of Baron Josef Anton Codelli: Conservation-Restoration Dilemmas They were Gorizians: the Great War and the Šantel Family of Artists Ivana Kobilca: Mira Pintar and Young Women in White Reliquary of Saint Pope and the Decorative Technique of Applied Brocade Boris Kalin, Zorka Košenina New Acquisition: Gvidon Birolla, Eagle’s Nest Mihael Stroj, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Copy after August Riedel, 1858 Restoration of the Painting The Sower by Ivan Grohar – Adaptation of a Deformed Stretcher Frame The Nativity Scene by Jože Plečnik for the Shop Lectarija in Ljubljana Luca Giordano, Prometheus Bound (c. 1666) New Acquisition of the National Gallery of Slovenia – a Present from the Narodni Dom Sports Association: Ivan Vavpotič, Poster for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914 Smrekar and Gaspari: Caricatures of Slovenian Artists Ivana Kobilca and Landscape Painting The Nativity Scene by Sculptor Liza Hribar The Mušič Drawings: Yesterday’s World for Tomorrow Eloquent Majolica Jug – About the Commission and the Painting by Peter van Kessel Matevž Langus, St Mary Magdalene, 1846 Ljubljana Photographer Ivan Kotar and the Photo Documentation of the First Slovenian Art Exhibition Andreas Lach and the Vienna Floral Painting Nativity Scene of Štefan Šubic: from the Parish Church in Železniki Matija Jama: Portraits Ivana Kobilca: a Witness to European Secessions Sculptor and Medallion Maker Anton Sever: Donation to the National Gallery of Slovenia (1960‒1961) Matevž Langus, St George, 1854 Marija Auersperg Attems, Vases on the Window, (1840–1850) Frančišek Smerdu: Motif from the National Liberation Movement, Conservation Issues of Plaster Casts Jurij Šubic: The Gardener and the Impression of Romantic Life in Realism Restoration of a Painting by Francesco Fontebasso: St Anne Teaching Mary to Read The Nativity Scene of Christoph Steidl Porenta, Goldsmith and Silversmith House Altar of the Annunciation: Provenance and Date of Creation Spanish School, Three Bouquets of Flowers Fran Klemenčič, Portrait of Dr Franc Derganc and Portrait of Heda Derganc New Year Greeting Cards: Pogačnik’s Collection of Artists’ New Year Greeting Cards Colophone Foreword A Decade of Revelations We, museologists, often ask ourselves how permanent our permanent collections really are; how the canons and doctrines of the parent disciplines or museology change; how to follow them properly; how to respond to changes while maintaining the necessary degree of conservatism. The issue is particularly true of national permanent collections that have wider and more structured audiences, while their fundamental task is to provide a comprehensive overview – in the National Gallery of Slovenia, it is a panoramic view of art production in the lands of today's Slovenia and beyond its borders from the High Middle Ages to the 20th century. At the same time, we wonder how to make permanent collections attractive for repeated visits, how to enrich a permanent collection to make it an alluring and promising space. We are interested in how, apart from regular museum work, we could devote ourselves to research and present its results as promptly as possible; how to draw attention to those works of art that shine in a new light after the restoration intervention; or how to inform currently the professional and lay public of the latest insights into a certain art work or a certain artist. Already in 2013 we started with sporadic monthly exhibitions and lectures, and after the 2016 architectural renovation of the Narodni dom (National Hall Palace) and the installation of a new permanent collection of art in Slovenia, a minor room was earmarked specifically for such presentations. They have become a monthly event on a regular basis and keep attracting ever more visitors. In tune with their purpose and content, we have called them Revelations. In order that the novelties of the research would not go unnoticed and that researchers outside our inner circle could profit from them to their advantage, we have prepared a selection of these presentations and linked them up in an electronic book. The Gallery's expert restorers and curators, along with external collaborators, author 69 papers that explore diverse art history topics, from medieval artworks to art production of the 20th century, as reflected in the inventoried holdings of the National Gallery; and some papers, on the other hand, expose the technical aspects of conservation-restoration interventions. The selected texts have not been published yet in the printed catalogues of the National Gallery of Slovenia. The diversity of the presented artworks and their related topics, from iconography and stylistic analyses or archival findings to the material side of the works, will intrigue a wider readership, while the high professional level and a valuable source of information will likewise attract scholars in the field of art history and restoration. We express our gratitude to all who have collaborated in the preparation of the electronic book, Gallery’s curators and restorers, and especially periodic outside experts who have allowed their texts to be published. Alenka Klemenc, Gojko Zupan, MA, and Andrej Doblehar, PhD, are scholars who complement the learning of Gallery’s curators with their professional expertise, while at the same time relying on the competence of Gallery’s restorers. The present electronic book is the sixth in a row in the Library of the National Gallery of Slovenia. All titles are available for free at the link: https://www.ng-slo.si/en/about-the-national-gallery-of-slovenia/publications. Barbara Jaki, Director of the National Gallery of Slovenia Translation Alenka Klemenc Revelations, April 2013 Matija Jama, A View of St Nicholas’ Cathedral, (1936) Between 1929 and 1935 Matija Jama lived in the Souvan house on the City Square (Mestni trg) in Ljubljana. The view of Šenklavž – St Nicholas’ Cathedral – opened up to him through the window of his garret studio on the fifth floor. From this perspective, a series of images was created in which the painter combined three important city monuments: the City Hall (Rotovž), the Robba Fountain and the western façade of the Baroque cathedral with its imposing towers. Of the nine versions that can be found in the documentation today, the format of the largest canvas (National Gallery of Slovenia) is twice as big (120 × 80 vs. 60 × 40 cm) as that of the smallest (Maribor Art Gallery). Compositional differences in the series of the paintings are minute. If we believed Jama’s series of Šenklavž paintings to be an Impressionist project, similar to Monet’s serial motifs, our understanding has to be amended. Examination of the painting with infrared reflectography has shown a square grid drawn over the priming under the paint layer, used by the painter to transfer outlines of the basic composition from a photograph. While smaller formats do not have a square grid, its usage in the case of the largest canvas points to a special commission of a large scale painting that Jama executed as the last in the series for the Banovina administration. Although determined by the light and the improvised character of the motif, the paintings executed towards the end of Jama’s career were in fact very carefully designed in some sort of a process of “the iconization of a motif”, to slightly change Tomaž Brejc’s term »the iconization of a landscape«. Hence, this is the crucial difference between the Slovene Impressionists and the historical origin of the style. Authors Andrej Hirci, Andrej Smrekar Translation Michel Mohor, Andrej Smrekar 6 April – 5 May 2013 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matija Jama, Šenklavž, A View of St Nicholas’ Cathedral, (1936?), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2478, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Šenklavž, 21 March 2013, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Infrared reflectography, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, October 2013 Giambettino Cignaroli, Alexander the Great before Darius’ Deceased Wife The painting is a »comprehensive image« of aulic Baroque Classicism, demonstrating the stylistic language that can be recognised in the painting of Verona’s artist Giambettino Cignaroli (1706–1770). His style was formed under the influence of the academic painting of Emilia-Romagna. Also influential were Verona-based artists, his teacher and a local, Antonio Balestra (1666–1740), and a Frenchman, Ludovico Dorigny (1654–1742). Cignaroli’s painting belongs to the time of artistically extremely diverse Venetian Settecento. He executed many large painting compositions for churches and palaces and he enjoyed considerable fame in his lifetime, and although he never left his immediate homeland, he received prestigious commissions from church prelates and crowned heads both in Italy and abroad, e.g. from the Russian, Polish and Spanish courts and from the Prince-elector of Saxony. The painter was trained in literature, poetry and rhetoric and it was easy for him to interpret literary stories of Ancient and Christian world in his own way. The displayed image is probably part of a cycle about the life of Alexander of Macedon (the Great) and presents the episode when in 333 B.C. the Macedonian hero defeated Darius, King of Persia, and captured the family of the escaped king: his mother, wife and two daughters. Shortly afterwards in a military camp, Darius’ wife died in childbirth. This saddened Alexander for he was unable to shower the captured queen with kindness. He visited her for the last time in a tent and ordered a funeral with full honors. Authors Ferdinand Šerbelj, Mihael Pirnat Jr. Translation Michel Mohor 3 October – 7 November 2013 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Giambettino Cignaroli, Alexander the Great before Darius’ Deceased Wife, (c. 1760), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3263, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, December 2013 Two Post-Mortem Portraits of Children by Pavel Künl Pavel Künl (1817–1871) was academically trained painter of historicist themes and portraits, who executed numerous paintings of children. His dexterity and ingenuity is especially evident in small-scale paintings and drawings. In line with tradition of altar paintings, he added children as putti to accompany saints, he included children in his genre paintings, also common are his portrait drawings and paintings of children. The two featured portraits by Künl, most likely painted circa 1857, have been titled Sleeping Girl and Baby (with Rattle). They open a special and unexplored chapter of 19th century Biedermaier portraits of children. Namely, both paintings depict deceased little ones. High child mortality rate, especially among infants younger than one year, and the influence of Romanticism’s exaltation of childhood help to explain the reasons for the production of such portraits. Artistic models for the depiction of deceased babies can be found in Dutch painting of the 17th century, where several different types of post-mortem portraits of children appear. Among the most moving are the depictions of children on their deathbed. Künl’s image of a dead girl relates to the post-mortem photography of the 19th century, where the deceased, alone or together with their relatives, are presented to appear lifelike in their home or in a photo studio. Künl treated both portraits of the deceased children with utmost sensitivity: colour and lighting are well-considered, the posture, clothes and telling belongings are carefully chosen. The expression on the children’s faces is calm, serene and not suffering. Both images retain a childlike character (toys, the posture of the older girl), and despite the fact that the children are dead, they do not appear morbid. The paintings were meant for the immediate family, especially parents, for comfort and as a lasting memory. The painter was able to handle the difficult task with subtle realism and dignity. Unfortunately, he himself experienced the pain of losing a child. On 12 August 1867, his firstborn, the 16-year-old Guido Viljem, drowned during summer swimming in the Sava River near Medno. Author Kristina Preininger Translation Michel Mohor 3 December 2013 – 2 January 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Pavel Künl, Deceased Girl, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 175, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Pavel Künl, Deceased Infant, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3209, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, January 2014 Matija Jama: Archaeology of a Painting Landscape with a River Motifs from the north-western region of Slovenia, Gorenjska, appeared in the work of Matija Jama (1872–1947) after he finally settled down in Ljubljana in 1924. Their topography was not extensive. The views of Lake Bled, established as tourist souvenirs a century ago, were a certain bet at the market. However, the majority of his motifs, as established by the Slovene Impressionism, are topographically unidentifiable intimate fragments of nature, from the broader outskirts of Bled, or panoramic views selected so as to avoid characteristic horizon lines which would allow for topographic identification. The painting Landscape with a River is one of even later colour studies, featuring a marvelous range between blues and greens, a modernist sequence of planes parallel to the picture surface, and emancipated brushwork. Besides its stylistic merits it is an eloquent document of Jama’s existential predicament and pragmatic solutions of technical problems in pictorial preparation during the years of economic crisis that followed the stock market crash of 1928. The Landscape with a River is painted on a canvas pasted on a plywood board. Under the raking light it is possible to notice vertical lines which are at odds with the painting’s horizontal composition. The mystery is explained by the X-ray exposure which allows us to clearly read a fragment of a female figure which matches rather well certain smaller studies of the shepherdesses of the Bela Krajina region. Stratigraphic micro-photography confirms two very different palettes. What makes our finding peculiar is the size of the body which would fit within a canvas at least 120 cm tall. There is no painting of such ambition known in Jama’s oeuvre. We are dealing with an abandoned project cut up into smaller formats for new paintings. A small painting of a Shepherdess / Spinner kept in the National Gallery of Slovenia could be one of the studies for the abandoned painting. There is a certain congruence in execution of the right outstretched arm in both – the flow of strokes and articulated shape. Samples of red from the embroidery of the girl’s shirt in underpainting and the red in the study seem identical. The status of the study is further confirmed by the pentimenti, registered by the naked eye and revealed under X-ray exposure. They indicate corrections of head and body position within the frame. The evidence gathered by application of scientific methods of examination integrated into the artist’s biography allows us to conclude that Jama conceived of his large figure no sooner than 1930, when he returned to the region of Lika after more than two decades, painting at Plitvice lake district and in Bela Krajina. We can hardly expect him to start the series with the large canvas. The paint had consolidated enough that the painter did not bother softening it for the intended reuse and the new layer did not quite bond with the old surface. Therefore the painting Landscape with a River must be dated into the second half of the 1930s, since by 1941 the Italian and German occupation of Yugoslavia drastically limited travel possibilities. The painting Landscape with a River belongs to the Government Collection managed by the National Gallery of Slovenia. It was treated urgently in 2011 because of a serious threat of loss of the painting substance. The technically poorer execution of the overpainting caused cracking and peeling of the upper paint layer. The purpose of the latest, already the fourth, conservation treatment was to consolidate the surface and regulate the microclimatic impact in order to warrant the best possible conditions and prevent recurrence of the threat. Authors Andrej Smrekar, Simona Škorja Translation Andrej Smrekar 9 January – 5 February 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matija Jama, Landscape with a River, (1935–1940), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2370, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, February 2014 Sculptor Franc Berneker and the Vidic Family The oeuvre of the Slovene sculptor Franc Berneker (1874–1932) includes both sculpture in the round and reliefs, and as to their motifs his works vary from portraits and figural compositions to monument- and sepulchral sculpture. He received his first sculptural training from the artisan Ignacij Oblak (1834–1916) in Celje, then improved his skills in Innsbruck and Graz, and finally enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1897. He studied under Professor Edmund von Hellmer (1850–1935) and completed the sculptural master class in 1905; however, he remained in the Austrian capital all until 1915. After the end of the First World War he moved to Ljubljana – he periodically also stayed in Celje – where he lived, impoverished and ill, in one of the rooms of the Narodni dom until his death. He was trying to solve his hopeless situation by way of short-term employments, by executing works on order –however, the commissions were but rare–, and by taking part in sculptural competitions which often ended without result, because the works for which they had been called were eventually not ordered at all. In the first decade of the 20th century, Berneker, while in Vienna, executed a number of realistically rendered portraits made on commission. They feature personages from cultural and social life, patrons, supporters, friends and their children. From his study years onwards he was generously supported by the publicist, patron and educator Dr. Pavel Turner (1842–1924), and particularly by Dr. Fran Vidic (1872–1944). In his autobiography, written in 1903 at the request of his fellow-artist, the painter Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943), Berneker wrote: »I met a number of Slovene intelligentsia in Vienna, among them Dr. Fr. Vidic. Dr. Vidic was rather intensely interested in the field of the arts; I became a guest of him almost on a daily basis. He helped me a lot, he collected funds for my studies as best as he could – and always successfully. Upon his recommendation I got a number of commissions and also received a minor grant, and he occasionally gave me a loan as a stopgap.« Dr. Fran Vidic was a literary historian, translator and patron, and he also held several political functions. He wrote a monograph in German language on the first Slovene poet, Valentin Vodnik, and published in Vienna the collection of poems Poezije by the greatest nation’s poet, France Prešeren; he contributed the profits for the Prešeren monument to be erected in Ljubljana. In various native and foreign papers he published his articles on Slovene literature and, under a number of pen-names, also his realistically styled prose feuilletons. He was a co-founder and member of the Slovene literary club in Vienna and a patron to numerous Slovene artists and writers, such as Ivan Cankar, Ivan Grohar, Fran Tratnik, Ivan Žabota, Ivan Vavpotič and, of course, Franc Berneker. He owned a rich art collection whose items now belong to the holdings of the Maribor Art Gallery, Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec, and National Gallery of Slovenia. Of the surviving Vidic family portraits by Berneker, the most intimate appears to be the portrait of daughter Zdenka Vidic and her friend Mira Ban, housed in the National Gallery of Slovenia. The double breast-length portrait was purchased by the Gallery in 1971. The sculptor first exhibited this artwork at the first Slovene art exhibition in Trieste in 1907, that is in the year of its execution. In 2013, the Vidic family donated abundant documentary materials about the sitter, Zdenka, to the National Gallery. She was born on 9 May 1902, so she was five years old when Berneker portrayed her. She prematurely died after a prolonged illness as a nineteen-year maiden. The double portrait was envisaged as an intimate piece of art and radiates a lyrical mood. The faces of the two girls are made soft through their childlike features, their loveliness is emphasized by their hairdo. The sculptor rendered the lower section of the sculpture with rougher chisel handling to achieve a contrast to the smoothly polished facial parts. The portrait is pervaded with Art Nouveau grace, tenderness, and dreaminess, and the translucent quality of white marble as the sculptural medium even further enhances the poetic effect. Authors Mateja Breščak, Alenka Simončič Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 February – 5 March 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Franc Berneker, Zdenka Vidic and Mira Ban, (1907), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 650, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, March 2014 A Medieval Story Written in Wood The four wooden relief scenes featuring episodes from the life of bishop Erhard of Regensburg (died circa 720) and St Odile (died 720): The Mass of Bishop Erhard, Erhard heals Odile from blindness, The tomb of St Erhard, Opening the tomb of St Erhard belonged to a certain Gothic altar that was dedicated to this 8th century missionary bishop. St Erhard and St Odile were worshipped as patron saints for eye diseases and headaches. Their cult spread to southern Alpine valleys during the Gothic era, while the discussed reliefs are the southernmost examples known so far of this iconography, thus originating from the area where St Lucy of Syracuse was predominantly worshipped as the patron saint for the above-stated health problems. Her feast day is December 13, the same as Odile’s. The details in the handling of the reliefs and the narrative style of the legend of St Erhard point to a carver who was formed in the art milieu of southern Germany and Bohemia but was probably active in the Duchy of Styria. The reliefs originate from the Gothic church of St Jodocus above Vransko and belong to the earliest preserved depictions of this subject matter. Their significance within a wider cultural-historical context also lies in the fact that in the area of south-eastern Alps, carved altars dating from this period have not been preserved. Judging by its subject matter and its artistic quality, the altar, of which only these fragments survive, must have been a prestigious commission which could have come from the Benedictine monastery of Gornji Grad (Oberburg) or from the Counts of Celje (Cilli), who had the office of the monastery’s advocates. After all, the Counts with their original castle of Žovnek (Sannegg) were, so to say, the neighbours, away from St Jodocus in the eastward direction only for a few-hour walk, while both were connected with the hillsides of the picturesque Dobrovlje plateau. The first documented conservation restoration treatment of the reliefs was carried out in 1973, before the comprehensive exhibition of Gothic sculpture in Slovenia held in the National Gallery of Slovenia. Removed white overpainting revealed fragments of original polychromy. Because the reliefs had long been on loan to the Gallery from St Jodocus’ church, their copies were made in exchange in the late 1970s. The moulds from which copies were cast were made of silicone rubber. Because the damaged wooden originals were insufficiently protected before the application of rubber, the advantage of copying the tiniest details proved to be a disadvantage in this case: the rubber also crept into the smallest cracks of the original which subsequently contracted due to wood expansion and practically clamped the rubber. Through some open insect exit holes the rubber crept even a few millimetres deep into several branched tunnels. After the moulds had been made, the rubber was not removed with sufficient exactitude. In 2012, the reliefs were restored again when sculptural works were being prepared for the extended permanent collection in the National Gallery. The conservation restoration treatment was done for aesthetic reasons, since filling the cracks, executed in pure wax, and the wax coating over the entire surface had turned dark. While hardening, silicone rubbers release ingredients which darken the wooden support, and their hardened clamped particles prevent the wood from natural expansion and contraction, so that in these parts unwanted forces begin to affect it. In addition, the rubbers remain sticky and attract dust. Thus, the latest intervention removed the darkened wax coating, unsuitable earlier putties and remains of silicone rubbers, the wood was reinforced and completed again. Authors Ferdinand Šerbelj, Martina Vuga Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 March – 2 April 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Carving Workshop of the Duchy of Styria, attributed, The Mass of Bishop Erhard, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Carving Workshop of the Duchy of Styria, attributed, Erhard Heals Odile from Blindness, (c. 1370–1380), St Jodocus above Vransko, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Carving Workshop of the Duchy of Styria, attributed, The Tomb of St Erhard, (c. 1370–1380), St Jodocus above Vransko, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Carving Workshop of the Duchy of Styria, attributed, Opening the Tomb of St Erhard, (c. 1370–1380), St Jodocus above Vransko, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, April 2014 Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna Gora The romantic landscapist and vedutista Marko Pernhart (1824–1871) is considered the first significant landscape painter in Slovenia. His oeuvre consists of more than 1,200 oils, outstanding among which are particularly his 360-degree panoramic views from the vantage points of peaks in the eastern Alpine world; these are considered to be his particular original thematic field. Marko Pernhart was born at Untermieger, in the municipality of Ebenthal, in the present Austrian part of Carinthia. He died in the provincial hospital in Klagenfurt. When he was fifteen, he left for Klagenfurt to be trained in painting. He soon met Eduard von Moro (1793−1848) there, a cloth manufacturer and painter of Viktring, under whom he studied landscape painting and who promoted Pernhart’s further artistic development. It was most probably through Moro’s agency that he came into contact with Franz Steinfeld (1787–1868), an influential professor of landscape painting at the Vienna academy. Because Marko Pernhart painted directly from nature, he travelled a great deal, of which as many as sixty-five surviving sketchbooks by him are evidence. Pernhart was also the first mountaineer among painters. He climbed Mt. Triglav in 1849 (the panorama is housed in the National Museum of Slovenia), then Mt. Stol (National Gallery of Slovenia), and other peaks, such as Mt. Mangart, Dobratsch, Saualpe, Monte Santo di Lussari, etc. Truly legendary seem to be his repeated ascents to the summit of almost 3,800 m of altitude, Mt. Grossglockner. In the same manner he also produced a panorama from Mt. Šmarna gora, the hill which offers, thanks to its excellent geographic position, vast vistas towards the horizon with the Julian Alps, the Kamnik Alps and the Karavanken mountains, as well as the hills in the regions of Dolenjska and Primorska. Pernhart painted this panorama in the 1860s, when he most often came to Carniola in his search for painting motifs. The earliest mention known so far of Pernhart’s panoramas from Mt. Stol and from Mt. Šmarna gora is related to the fact that the paintings were bought by the Savings Bank of Carniola from the legacy of Jernej Vidmar (Widmer), the bishop of Ljubljana who had died in Kranj in 1883. The National Bank (Ljubljana) handed them over to the National Gallery of Slovenia around 1960. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 3 April – 6 May 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna gora I, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 288, (photo Bojan Salaj, labeling Ferdinand Šerbelj, Luka Hribar, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna gora II, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 289, (photo Bojan Salaj, labeling Ferdinand Šerbelj, Luka Hribar, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna gora III, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 290, (photo Bojan Salaj, labeling Ferdinand Šerbelj, Luka Hribar, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Marko Pernhart, Panorama from Mt. Šmarna gora IV, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 291, (photo Bojan Salaj, labeling Ferdinand Šerbelj, Luka Hribar, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, May 2014 Janez in Jurij Šubic, Adoration of the Magi In the Slovene village of Poljane nad Škofjo Loko, a painting and sculptural workshop of Štefan Šubic (1820–1884) was active in the nineteenth century. Its tradition goes back to the late-Baroque workshop of his father, Pavel Šubic (1772–1847). Štefan had eight children; five of them were boys and all of them carried on their grandfather’s and father’s trade. However, only Janez (1850–1889) and Jurij (1855–1890) managed to create art on the level of European quality. They were well acquainted with artistic currents in great art centres of Europe, and their works notwithstanding the fact that they were based on the postulates of the ideals of classical art and in spite of conventionality of public commissions introduced the standards of the new time into the Slovene artistic milieu. This is best expressed in their studies, whether drawings, oils or watercolours, which, with their attraction for plein-air and relaxed strokes, testify to their individual inspiration. From their early academic style of painting they progressed to a realistic interpretation of motifs. This holds true particularly of the younger brother Jurij, who found a visit to France most inspiring and liberating. In 1883, he was, as the first Slovene, accepted to the Paris Salon with praise. In the field of drawing, the Šubic brothers were also pioneers in high quality Slovene book illustration; they participated with great success especially to the journals Zvon and Slovan. Within the sphere of religious painting, the two pictures featuring the same motif of the Adoration of the Magi, one by Janez, the other by Jurij, introduce a new sense of formal and colour freshness into the sacred theme. The paintings no longer depend on the Nazarene aesthetic principles, but they reveal direct modelling on earlier, i.e. Renaissance art, suggestive Venetian painting in the first place, thus demonstrating the elements of realistic handling of form and content. With their search for beauty and classical harmony, the two painters surpass mere craftsmanship, so that they helped to improve local art and elevate it above the anaemic production of their time. And more: in addition to innovations introduced to formal elements and the interplay of colours and light, their figures in altarpieces are also psychologically persuasive. The work of the Šubic brothers, unfortunately prematurely brought to an end, was an important turning point for further development of progressive artistic currents. We can conclude with the fact, already known, that the painting of Janez and Jurij Šubic opened the door for realism in the visual art in the Slovene lands and pointed the way to the four Slovene impressionists. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 8 May – 4 June 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Janez Šubic, Adoration of the Magi, 1877, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3354, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jurij Šubic, Adoration of the Magi, 1888, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 429, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2014 St Mark’s Gospel I.8 Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943) prepared a tour de force for the opening exhibition in his art pavilion in 1909. St Mark’s Gospel I.8 looks like an altar composition and is his largest easel painting. Expert opinion on the time of conception and execution of the subsequently lost canvas favours the time before 1909, when Jakopič allegedly courted the Church for commissions and made use of certain academic nudes and figure studies from his Munich period. The painter claimed that the composition from St Mark’s Gospel had been conceived around 1898, and the evidence of his drawings supports his claim. Although they have been cut out from notebooks and larger sheets, we can reassemble them to a certain extent by comparing the paper. Studies for the composition can be linked to motifs and interests of his earlier time. But the question of Jakopič’s religious painting is pertinent. While in 1898 he might have seriously contemplated religious subjects, it becomes later increasingly difficult to believe that. He deliberately reinterpreted religious subjects and made them ineffective for catethetic purposes. He appropriated religious subject matter to address the viewer in a very subjective and emotionally charged way based on a rather symbolic function of light. In all of his genres he took advantage of the counter-light that spans extremes from the realistic landscape taken against the sun to depictions of artificial light that emanates from a hidden source within the picture space. The latter is keen to the symbolic expression. Author Andrej Smrekar 5 June – 2 September 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Fran Vesel (?), The photograph of the first exhibition in Jakopič Pavilion, (1909), National and University Library Rihard Jakopič, Study of the Final Composition with Frame, (before 1909), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 6992, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Rihard Jakopič, Study for St John the Baptist, (before 1900), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 6604, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Rihard Jakopič, Study for St John the Baptist, (before 1900), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2731, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Rihard Jakopič, Two Studies for the Sphinx, (before 1900), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 6969, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Rihard Jakopič, Girl at a Table Lamp, (c. 1907), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 8213, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, September 2014 Anton Ažbe and his Black Woman: some new Findings The portrait of a black woman by Anton Ažbe (1862–1905), the renowned Slovene painter who had a famous art school in Munich at the turn of the 19th century, is one of the iconic images in Slovene culture, yet it remains enigmatic in several aspects. The sitter is anonymous, although the conception of the picture indicates it is a portrait not just a study work. Even its dating in 1895 has been tentative, resulting from its being exhibited in 1896 in the Munich Glaspalast, which is the earliest piece of information about the painting. The goal of the present Revelations was to solve the above-mentioned problems. The point of departure was a note by the USA-based Slovene art historian Rajko Ložar (1904–1985), saying that Ažbe’s Black Woman portrays »the Negroid wife of the American Consul in Munich« (Slovene Studies, 2, No. 1, 1980, p. 24). The question of a more precise dating of the picture was surprisingly answered in the conservation- restoration department of the National Gallery of Slovenia. When the surface of the painting was checked meticulously, another signature was detected underneath the one in cinnabar paint reading Ažbe. With the help of macro photography of this detail, illuminated at a specific angle, the underlying signature (very likely written with the pointed end of a wooden brush handle into the still fresh oil paint) became fairly readable. By means of digital technology a complete reconstruction of the lower-lying inscription was made possible; it is marked in green colour in the enlarged reproduction of this detail. We can discern the signature Achbe 89. It has already been known that in the line below the red-colour signature the word München is written into the layer of paint, while the original signature has all until now evaded detection because of its being obscured by the subsequently added one. We can see that it is spelled with »ch«, the way Ažbe also signed some of his other works (e.g. the drawings Little Girl of Dalmatia (1885), Bavarian Peasant (1885), Head of Reclining Old Man (1887), etc.). The painter obviously added the version spelled with the Slovene »ž«, when he sent the portrait to be displayed in Ljubljana in 1900 at the First Slovene Art Exhibition. Having done so, he concealed not only his original signature but also the date beside it, i.e. 89. The method of infrared photography also shows vestiges of underdrawing on white ground, probably executed in charcoal or black chalk, which means that Ažbe, an excellent draughtsman, had prepared very carefully before he started to apply paint. The fact that the Black Woman – this exemplary painting that hung on a wall of Ažbe’s painting school in Munich as a model for young aspirant artists – proved to be as many as six years older than had been believed earlier, substantiated the statement made by Ažbe’s student Igor Grabar, namely that the portrait was an old academy work of his teacher (Ažbe studied at the Munich academy from 1884 through 1891). In view of the newly discovered date, the US consul who was to be considered was Edward Windsor Mealey of Hagerstown, Maryland. He served his office in Bavaria between 1887 and 1890, but the enquiries showed that his wife had not been black. Hence, Ložar’s statement must be left unexplained and the Black Woman remains anonymous. However, the research has given an interesting by-product. In the National Museum of Slovenia a hitherto uncatalogued plaster medallion has been found, featuring Ažbe’s portrait in profile, a work by the Munich sculptor Conrad Holzer from 1907. Like the Black Woman, the medallion, too, was donated to the one-time Province of Carniola by Nicholas von Gutmansthal, who explained that the plaster was a model for a marble portrait to decorate the headstone of Ažbe’s grave in Munich. The deserted grave was rearranged in 2001 and its headstone is now embellished with a bronze relief portrait of the painter made by Mirsad Begić. Among the memoires related to Ažbe, interest has also been aroused by the note retrospectively written by the painter Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943), stating that he arrived at the Munich academy when Ažbe »was just painting, with his characteristic zeal, a large canvas on commission, whose sketch is now in the National Gallery in Ljubljana«. Jakopič arrived in Munich in the autumn of 1889, and literature reports that around 1890 Ažbe sold a painting entitled Odalisque and a Eunuch to Berlin. It is most reasonable to believe that the National Gallery of Slovenia’s exhibit In a Harem, featuring a subject-matter that is identical to the title of the 1890 painting, is indeed Ažbe’s sketch for his above-mentioned early work. This fact raises doubts about the currently accepted chronology of the painter’s works, according to which In a Harem, due to its very free brushwork (one should keep in mind that it is just a sketch!), was painted in 1903, thus at the very end of Ažbe’s surviving oeuvre. In this case, too, it would be wise to reconsider the dating. The Black Woman is the only painting by Ažbe that we know he had ever exhibited, although he is reported to have shown his works already as an academy student. Except for works on commission which he was bound to deliver to his clients, in his mature years he never really finished his canvases, begun with his proverbial energy and recalled in the memoirs of a number of his contemporaries. The poet Oton Župančič, who met the painter towards the end of the latter’s life, rightly noted: »I saw master Ažbe in the Simplicissimus tavern […] a broken man due to excessive drinking […] I feel pity for the chap; he could show something else at exhibitions apart from his Mulatto, beyond which he obviously can reach no more.« Authors Alenka Klemenc, Andrej Hirci 4 September – 30 September 2014 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Anton Ažbe, Black Woman, 1889, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Signature, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Signature with year reconstruction, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, January 2015 Gems – Miniature Images in Stones Several thousand years of art history has been captured in minute images carved in precious or semi-precious stones, the so-called gems. There are two types of carved gems: intaglios and cameos. The design of the former is engraved as a »negative« into the flat background of the gem. For the most part, they were mounted in rings which served as seals to be pressed into sealing wax or clay. They were used to seal both public documents and personal letters. The imprinted image stood as a signature, thus ensuring the ownership and intactness of the content of a document or envelope or package. In contrast, the design in cameos is carved in relief, that is to say as a »positive«. They are chiefly made of layers of differently coloured stones. They only served a decorative purpose as jewellery. The art of carving or incising designs into stones goes back to the 4th millennium BC and it most likely originated in Mesopotamia. The technical process developed through long centuries and produced outstanding results both in terms of craftsmanship and artistic merit. Gems are very small, mostly not larger than one square centimetre, yet the masters who created them were capable of carving most diverse motifs – scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey, individual deities, mythical or historical events, everyday scenes, animals, portraits of contemporaries, etc. Each gem was a unique item of intimate character. They were made exclusively to order placed by individuals and were meant solely for their personal use. They accompanied the owner to the netherworld, or were passed down from generation to generation. Carved or engraved images can express the client’s character and taste, way of life, respect for ancestors, loyalty to rulers, devotion to deities, adherence to a philosophical doctrine, affection for a beloved person, they can celebrate a solemn event or personal virtuous deeds. The choice of the motif in combination with the selected stone also enhanced the magic power of the gem, which served the owner as an amulet. Thanks to their beauty, precision in execution, wide range of stones and variety of iconographic motifs, gems have been greatly admired for centuries. Mainly due to a great interest of art collectors, impressions of original gems came into fashion in the seventeenth century; they were made of plaster or sealing wax, because the prices of these were by far more affordable than the costs required for the originals. Collections of impressions were widespread particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They contained impressions of classical, Renaissance and Baroque gems as well as the so-called modern-period gems which were made in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Looking at such collections one got the feeling he was back to ancient times. It was possible to contemplate them and imagine that one had true characters of the old world before their eyes. One of such collections, dating from the early nineteenth century, is also housed in the National Gallery of Slovenia. It was donated in 1961 by the medallist and sculptor Anton Sever (1886–1965). Author Alenka Simončič 8 January – 4 February 2015 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Collection of Gems, National Gallery of Slovenia, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, March 2015 Conservation-Restoration Treatment of the Decorative Frame of the Annunciation Altarpiece by Martin Johann Kremser-Schmidt Kremser-Schmidt’s (1718–1801) painting of the Annunciation from 1771 is coming back to the permanent exhibition of the National Gallery of Slovenia in its one-time magnificent image, that is to say, framed in the original, typically Baroque-styled decorative frame. It excels in a great variety of animated ornaments carved in wood and in the use of toned and alternately burnished or matte gilding. The frame suffered several sorts of damage in the course of time; the most apparent were numerous missing flowers on the basic rail and broken off pointed leaf tops of the main foliage ornaments. The consequences of old repairs in which the damaged gilding was retouched with improper materials and the gleam of the surfaces was recovered by means of different sorts of finishes, applied also over soiling material, were also visually evident. Extensive damage and changes required long-lasting conservation-restoration treatment of all constituent layers of the frame, because of which it had to be temporarily replaced with another one. The year-long conservation-restoration treatment of the frame was carried out as part of the diploma work of Tonka Mohar, a student in the programme of restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana, in the school-year 2013–14. Within the scope of the work, the following tasks were also performed: the profile of the basic rail was drawn, the construction of the frame was meticulously described, original techniques of gilding and toned gold were distinctly identified. Surface cleaning was initially performed. Part of soiling material is water-soluble, which represents a problem when attempts are made to remove it from water sensitive surfaces. Hence the gilding, originally done with water-soluble binder and being also damaged and unvarnished, is even more sensitive. Several dry and/or wet methods were employed which were adequately adapted to the surface being cleaned in order to efficiently, controllably, safely and selectively separate layers of soil from the underlying layers. After the cleaning was completed it turned out that in some sections dirt was entrapped under the varnish which should have been removed to achieve effective final results of the procedure, but varnish removal was done only locally. The most demanding part of the intervention proved to be the replacement of the missing parts of the wooden support. Twenty-three of the sixty-three missing flowers were made by means of moulds taken from the preserved flowers, and the missing apexes of leaf ornamentation were modelled directly. Next to be done on the replaced elements was the preparation of suitable gesso and bole layers for gilding; this was done by employing classical materials and techniques which enable gold to be burnished to achieve the adequate gleam. The specific feature of the original use of differently toned gold was also repeated on the surfaces that were re-gilded. The final appearance still had to be properly adapted to the patina of time on the surrounding original, at some points also by imitating cracks on the gilding. Authors Martina Vuga, Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 5 March – 1 April 2015 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Martin Johann Kremser Schmidt, Announciation, (1771), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1301, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Component parts of the frame with marked missing parts, (drawing by Tonka Mohar) Surface cleaning of the gilding on the cloud, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Detail after the re-modelling of the missing tips of leaf ornamentation, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Detail during treatment, showing fills done with gesso, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, April 2015 Revival of a Banner by Jurij Šubic Jurij Šubic (1855–1890), one of the prominent Slovene representatives of realist painting, comes from an artisan family in which production of items of visual arts flourished already in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, the Šubic line branched into several artisan families, and from the family of Štefan Šubic (1820–1884) of Poljane as many as five sons came who carried on the family tradition. The most important of them are the talented and academically trained brothers Janez (1850–1889) and Jurij. The latter successfully completed the academy in Vienna, after which he sought his fortune in several places in Europe. He began his military service in Trieste and was transferred to Bosnia in 1878, where he chronicled the turbulent events in a number of excellent drawings. Later he went to Bohemia and Moravia and in 1880 he painted mythological and allegorical scenes in the palace of the famous archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in Athens. Although Šubic was a respected artist in this city, he was attracted by the cosmopolitan Paris, and it was only there that his artistic talent for painting outdoors got into full swing during his ten-year stay in the metropolis and short visits to Normandy. Very popular proves to be his plein-air painting Before the Hunt (1883). Throughout, Jurij Šubic maintained contacts with his homeland. He, as well as his brother Janez, contributed several illustrations to literary and documentary works, because of which the two are credited as the pioneers of Slovene art illustration. In addition to effective realistic portraits, Jurij carried out commissions given by church clients, whether through his father’s workshop or on his own. He made use of his painting experiences, deliberately balancing realistic form and light interpretation, also in his religious works, which is epitomized, as pars pro toto for his sacred output, in the exhibited banner of an unknown provenance. The banner was accepted into the restoration process in 2013, but even prior to this several interventions had been made on it, but only on the side with the images of Sts. Barbara and Blaise. The canvas was mounted on a decorative frame in such a way that only one side, i.e. the better or more interesting one, could be seen. However, the contemporary approach requires an overall treatment for two-sided images, so that both sides can be visible. We tackled the problem of this semi-restored banner by »un-restoring« first the face of the picture, and only afterwards a new procedure of conservation and restoration began. If the substances used in the past cannot be easily removed, it is very difficult to avoid collateral damage. As was possible to judge from a mere look, and was subsequently proven during the restoration process, the canvas had been in a very poor condition even before the first intervention. Because the banner had been in use in different weather conditions and because of the aging of the material, the canvas was not only bent and torn at several places but also distinctively brittle. Previous restoration experiences call for a well-considered treatment which will recover the original image of the work of art and protect its material existence, but at the same time ensure its aesthetic effect. The tears of the canvas have been glued »at contact«, which means that the adhesive substance does not cover the layers of paint. In view of the original purpose of the banner it seems right that it should be hung, but because the support is brittle, it has also been reinforced at the sides to secure bearing strength. The canvas is inserted between two wooden frames. This sort of presentation is only an approximation to the final solution and, being a »work in process«, it is only in the phase of testing. Authors Ferdinand Šerbelj, Mihael Pirnat Jr. 2 April – 6 May 2015 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana St Barbara and St Blaise, (c. 1880), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 452, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Crucifixion with Mary, St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene, (c. 1880), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 452, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Banner before and after the restoration, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, November 2015 Jožef Petkovšek: Images behind Images Quite a number of art historical studies have been written about Petkovšek’s painting output, but no overall natural science and conservation/restoration analyses of his works have yet been done. In the study volume Jožef Petkovšek: Podvojene slike (Jožef Petkovšek: Doubled images) colleagues from the Natural Science Department of the Restoration Centre of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia published the results of their examinations of several of the painter’s works with the methods of X-ray radiography (RTG), optical microscopy (OM), and scanning electron microscopy in connection with energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDX). The National Gallery of Slovenia possesses the optical system of multispectral analysis which renders possible a nondestructive insight into different layers on the painting surface. We employed the UVF, VIS and IR, and IRR methods. We examined the painted surfaces in the layers of retouches and overpaintings and the protective layer (UVF). We continued the examination on the colour surface (VIS and VISDET) and illuminated the paintings all to the priming (IR and IRR) where the painter’s technology allowed. Most of Petkovšek’s examined paintings have white priming followed by layers of oil paint. As a rule, protective varnish is also applied to the surface, but it could have been added later. All paintings have already undergone conservation/restoration interventions, some of them even several times. It is a well-known fact that the painter overpainted numerous of his works, or at least altered them. His Venetian Kitchen was reworked, or complemented, even four times (supposedly the most accomplished variant of this motif is lost). Similarly, also the Washerwomen by the Ljubljanica River were executed both in gouache and oil. Optical analysis has revealed the painter’s »restless« hand. Often, it is a matter of imperfection of the brushstroke, whereas on the other hand, Petkovšek’s analytical approach can be detected in the finalizing of the painted motif. Underdrawing as a preparatory aid in the construction of a composition is visible in most of his examined paintings, since they have a well traceable white priming. The system of squaring as a means of translating images from other sources and rich underdrawing are indicators of the artist’s intentions to develop a systematic approach which, as a rule, has a firm compositional structure under the surface. The tragic life story of the painter and lack of understanding of his painting potentials are the reason why many of his paintings are lost forever. Therefore, at least his surviving works deserve an all-embracing analysis. The purpose of the present optical examinations was to support the theses concerning stylistic characteristics which art historians have already studied thoroughly. The era of realism in Slovene painting falls into the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and its beginning was promising for the young generation of painters. However, their life stories took a dramatic turn, as if designed by contemporary realist novels. It is particularly true of Jožef Petkovšek (1861–1898), about whom a TV movie was made in 1978, suggestively entitled The Mad Painter. His works were first exhibited only posthumously in 1910, but from them onwards interest in his oeuvre, albeit meagre, grew rapidly. His output fell victim to the artist’s own fits of destructive temper and to misjudgement of his contemporaries who disdainfully discarded his works. Special interest was paid by art historians to the painting At Home (1889), so that it became the most frequently (re)interpreted work of art in our country. Also the painter’s contemporary piece Venetian Kitchen (1888) was given similar psychological interpretations. Petkovšek’s painting intentions are clearly revealed by his thorough preparatory works and then alterations during the process of the execution of a painting, whereas »aesthetic« interventions on his paintings after his death reflect the taste of the contemporaries. Such interventions are invisible to the naked eye, but have been revealed by means of new technical, i.e. non-destructive, methods reaching through the layers of paint all to the canvas. A special place in Petkovšek’s oeuvre goes to his painting Washerwomen by the Ljubljanica River, dating from 1886. It was commissioned as a gift to one of the daughters of the Kotnik family who had got married and left the large and rich estate for Kranj, where, in the new milieu, the painting was meant to be a memento of her native Verd near Vrhnika. The painter captured a view towards the river, a view which can still be identified today thanks to the fence on the right. He painted from life and employed no previous works as his models. However, the painting shows that he was familiar with original works of contemporary French painting, which is evident in the cooler palette and careful interpretation of relations between light and shade, and reflections of the sky and objects mirroring on the water surface. The painting is well balanced also in terms of composition. Instead of the horizontal format, usual in landscape painting, he chose a rarely used vertical view, which might have been the client’s wish. The painting Washerwomen by the Ljubljanica River is certainly one of the outstanding works of Slovene realism, and it significantly adds to the knowledge of this art period. Authors Andrej Hirci, Ferdinand Šerbelj 5 November – 2 December 2015 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Jožef Petkovšek, Venetian Kitchen, 1888, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1748, detail, VIS 1975 – VIS – IRF – UVFO, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, At Home, (c. 1889), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 305, detail, VIS – IRF, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, House by the Water, (1888/1889), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 308, VIS – IRF, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, Washerwomen by the Ljubljanica River, (c. 1886/1887), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 385, IRR, detail of the signature covered up by the year 1885?, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, Washerwomen by the Ljubljanica River, (c. 1886/1887), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 385, detail, VIS – IRF, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, Haymakers Resting, 1889, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2569, VIS – IRR, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, Study for the Venetian Kitchen, 1888, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1453, VIS – IRR, reproduction, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Jožef Petkovšek, Still Life, 1884, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 307, UVF, detail with the double signature, reproduction, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, March 2016 Ivana Kobilca’s Still Lifes Late still lifes by Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926) are notable for their slight colour and spatial permutations and are understood as a continuation and distillation of a motif that attracted the painter throughout her life. The focus on a direct and inviting genre can also be understood in the light of expectations and limitations faced by women artists, while the serialization reminds us that the viewer is witnessing the results of a creative ritual. Kobilca’s Still Lifes All floral still lifes kept at the National Gallery of Slovenia are from the artist’s late period, from 1914 onwards, when Kobilca was living in Ljubljana after her return from Berlin at the onset of the First World War. The artist was 53 when she finally left the German capital, her last European sojourn. Her still lifes were becoming simplified and by the time of her death the painter depicted flowers with limited changes to the original formula. Dahlias, (private collection, c. 1914), are the most colourful late still life. Different sorts of dahlias are placed in a white vase on a bright table, half-covered with a tablecloth. The petals are painted with swift and thin strokes, which animate the still life. Bright colour scale echoes the Berlin years and the painting must have been completed soon after Kobilca’s return to the Carniolan capital. Still Life with Poppies is the most dramatic still life in the series. The bright red blooms stand out against the dark colours of the background and the tablecloth. The picture is a study of one sort as seen in different profiles and stages of flowering. Some blossoms are open or closed, some stalks are pushing upward, while others are bending under the weight of the flower, and some blooms are facing the viewer, while others are turned towards the wall. Two paintings of chrysanthemums are very similar. For both, Kobilca used the same glass vase and a small table. She only changed the decorative silk ribbons (she had around a hundred of them) and the tablecloth. Still Life with Chrysanthemums I creates spatial depth by means of a looking glass leaning against the plain wall behind the bouquet, while Still Life with Chrysanthemums II builds space with a china dish leaning against the wall, both decorated with floral motifs. Kobilca placed two bouquets of roses in front of a similar brown background and on a tablecloth that fuses with the wall and barely functions as picture space. She focused her attention on the yellow flowers; the bouquet in Still Life with Roses I is placed in a vase with the same floral motif we see on the dish in Chrysanthemums II, while the vase in Still Life with Roses II is the same as the one in Still Life with Poppies. Still Lifes and Women Painters The academies also prevented women from becoming painters. The reason was »common sense morality«: the pillar of academic study was life drawing, including nude models, making the practice completely unacceptable for women. Women, who nevertheless became painters and who were in exceptional cases allowed to attend academies, were often slandered, especially if their figures were dexterously painted. Thus, we can understand that Kobilca, like many women painters before her, focused on still life and portrait, since these genres did not require the study of the (naked) human form. Despite obstacles, Kobilca succeeded with the help of supporting parents, her study abroad, and bourgeois and Church contacts. Her supposed conformity should not be understood as a lack of skill or ambition, but as a tactic that led to the greatest possible subversion: the most successful Slovenian artist of all time is the person who was most held back by the society. Author Michel Mohor 3 March – 6 April 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Roses I, (1914–1926), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 153, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Roses II, (1914–1926), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2787, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Poppies, (1914–1926), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2848, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Chrysanthemums I, (1914–1926), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2740, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Chrysanthemums II, (1914–1926), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2944, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Still Life with Plums, (after 1900), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 154, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, April 2016 Herman Verelst, Portrait of Hans Jacob von Wiederkehr Herman Verelst (c. 1640/1641–1702) received his first art training in the painting workshop of his father, Pieter Hermansz Verelst (c. 1618–1678). Also Herman’s younger brother Simon Verelst and Herman’s children Cornelis and Maria Verelst were painters. Simon and Herman registered at the painters’ guild in the Haag in 1663. The data clearly reflects the Verelst family tradition in the field of art, while insufficient information about Herman Verelst indicates that he mainly painted still lifes, religious motifs, and portraits. In 1667 Herman was documented in Amsterdam as a married man, his wife was Cecilia Fene of Venice; he was again documented in the same city in 1670. It was perhaps the origin of his wife that made the painter and his family leave for the south of Europe, all the way to Rome. In 1678 a daughter of his was baptized in Ljubljana, Carniola, but already in 1680 he and his family moved to Vienna where they stayed for three years. Good recommendations opened the artist a way to the imperial court and to other members of court nobility. After three years in Vienna the Verelsts left for London; the artist made several shorter travels across the country and he eventually died in the British capital. The painter’s reputation with the nobility of Ljubljana is evident from the names of the godparents at the baptism of Verelst’s daughter Katarina Helena in Ljubljana Cathedral in 1678. The data collected by Uroš Lubej renders possible to follow, fragmentarily at least, the life story of Verelst, and in Lubej’s opinion the artist could tentatively be related to Johann Weichard Valvasor’s mysterious painter Almanach. In any case, the published bits shed light on part of the life of the painter who presented himself splendidly through his portraits of the Wiederkehr spouses. Hans Jacob Wiederkehr (1631–1702) and his wife, Maria Elisabeth (1655–1718), are well documented in the archives of Ljubljana. Their »engagement« portraits, both of the same size, are meant to be grand-style images, but as to the time of their origin they seem a rather relaxed presentation of aristocrats of lower rank. The portraits reveal the painter’s skill, which he acquired in his father’s workshop and improved further on his travels to art centres. In terms of decorativeness and colouring, the image of Maria Elisabeth is rather more vivid that that of her husband. The male aristocratic portrait is typically dark, as was the fashion of the time: by means of well-balanced illuminated sections the sitter’s figure stands out from the completely tenebrous background. The rich wig of the restrained but self-confident nobleman and his carefully painted discreet fashionable attire evidence the painter’s skill in interchanging bright sections and deep shadows on the prevailing dark tones of the Baroque costume. It is exactly the balanced light sections and accomplished modelling that provide this portrait with a persuasive aristocratic expression and testify to the artist’s painting mastery. The portraits of the Wiederkehr couple are important not only to add to the small group of the identified Verelst portraits, but they also represent the »noble selection« in the series of early-Baroque portraiture in Carniola. This is even more important because British art history classifies Verelst among skilful portraitists of his time. The restoration intervention by Mihael Pirnat Jr., MA, is thus a relevant contribution to the unveiling of artistic values of the painter in question. Authors Ferdinand Šerbelj, Mihael Pirnat Jr. 7 April – 4 May 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Herman Verelst, Portrait of Hans Jacob von Wiederkehr, 1678, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 649, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, May 2016 A Painter About a Painter – Hinko Smrekar’s Caricature of his Fellow Painter Ivan Vavpotič, 1927 The two artists are indispensable figures in Slovene painting between the two wars. In 1903, both of them were among the founders of the short-lived, nationally oriented artists’ club Vesna. It is true that their paths did not diverge, but they belonged to different strata of society. Ivan Vavpotič (1877–1943), a graduate of the art academy in Prague, was a respected painter of well positioned middle class with the reputation of court painter to the Karađorđević dynastic family. In addition to magnificent salon portraits in grand manner he also perfectly mastered still lifes and plein-air motifs demonstrating impressionistic picturesque quality. His entire work is characterized by refined handling of light transitions and brilliant colours. As a skilled draughtsman he was also an excellent and witty illustrator of books. The well-educated and widely active cultural figure and commentator of contemporary art scene and a well-mannered gentleman was certainly a contrast to the younger Hinko Smrekar (1883–1942) who entered Slovene history of art as a perceptive caricaturist. He was exceptionally skilled as a draughtsman and printmaker and was one of the beginners of graphic arts in Slovenia. Rather than his decent education it was his penetrating ability and his utterly honest and unyielding nature that prevailed in his work. He was a caustic chronicler of his time. As a satirist, caricaturist and illustrator he relentlessly and harshly ridiculed hypocrisy and other vices of his contemporaries. With his critical insight he analysed the social and cultural situation of the time and made fun of petit bourgeois mentality by means of his engaged caricature. In his tireless, almost feverish creative activity he unmasked the inhuman capitalism and already called attention to the first signs of militarism. This was the main reason why the Italian occupation authorities, instigated by petit bourgeois interests of the locals, shot him as a hostage immediately after his arrest, without court procedure. Irrespective of how we look upon his satire today, his caricatures always address us with their eternal issues of social deviations. Besides having produced innumerable caricatures on a variety of subjects and illustrations, Smrekar also depicted many persons from cultural life. His caricatures tell us more about the person they present than even the best studio photograph, because only through Smrekar’s keen perception the depicted notables become recognizable personae. Besides rendering the physiognomy in a caricatured way, the image of Smrekar’s fellow painter Ivan Vavpotič, dating from 1927, also underlines his profession. As the caption explains, Vavpotič is presented in the role of stage designer of the National Theatre in Ljubljana, where he was engaged some more than two years. His face in the caricature is typically long, with the typical beard and moustache, and he wears an exceedingly wide-brimmed hat reminiscent of Don Quixote’s. The caricaturist humorously emphasized the role of the stage designer, shod in ballet slippers, by adding a brush as big as a besom, and huge containers of paints. The sheet of paper Vavpotič holds in his hand probably alludes to a libretto which, being stage designer, he had to know well. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj 5 May – 1 June 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Hinko Smrekar, Ivan Vavpotič, Stage Designer, 1927, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 8312, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2016 Gvidon Birolla, Lady in a Violet Dress This year marks a hundred and thirty-fifth anniversary of the birth of painter and illustrator Gvidon Birolla (1881–1963). He was one of the founding members of the artists’ club Vesna in which Slovene and Croatian secondary-school and university students were joined. It was actually operative in Vienna since the year 1902 but was formally established on 9 May 1903. Together with other Vesna members, the twenty-three years old Birolla already participated in the First Yougoslav Art Exhibition that was organized in Belgrade in 1904. In 1906 Birolla completed his studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in the class of Professor Christian Griepenkerl (1836−1916) and then returned home. He was active as an artist in Škofja Loka and painted in the town itself and in the surrounding areas. After his brother’s death in 1917 he decided to take responsibility for the managing of the family business – the lime kiln at Zagorje ob Savi and later at Kresnice – and gave up painting. He only returned to artistic activity in the late 1930s; he kept to the idiom of his early career, mainly modifying the images that had impressed him profoundly in his youth until the end of his life. The National Gallery of Slovenia houses 149 drawings and watercolours as well as 16 oil paintings by Gvidon Birolla. Four of the latter are portraits: Portrait of a Nun (1900), Ivan Grohar, Feliks Birolla and Antonija Birolla. Feliks and Antonija Birolla were the painter’s parents, while Ivan Grohar (1867−1911), a Slovene Impressionist painter, liked to visit Birolla’s studio in Škofja Loka, and the works of the two artists evidence that they painted together in the surroundings of this town. In addition to artworks by Gvidon Birolla the National Gallery of Slovenia also keeps part of the painter’s personal archive. Among the documents there are also two full-length female portraits: a photo portrait (albumen photograph, 9.2 × 5.7 cm) from the photographic studio of Ed. Lichtenstern in Trieste and a Lady in a Violet Dress, at first recognized as a gouache miniature. As concerns the latter, it has been established recently by Tina Buh, the National Gallery’s conservator-restorer, that the Lady in a Violet Dress is in fact a hand-coloured photo portrait (8.6 × 5.7 cm) and that Birolla cropped a copy of the photograph from Lichtenstern’s Trieste photo studio and heavily overpainted it. Last year, with the help of the painter’s relatives still alive, we managed to identify the depicted lady as Antonija Birolla, née Šink, the painter’s mother. According to a painter’s kinswoman now deceased, the violet dress Antonija wears in the picture, still existed in 2003 but was discarded about ten years ago due to decrepitude. In the oil portrait of his mother Birolla retained her posture as can be seen in the portrait photograph. However, the painter changed the colour of the dress, otherwise of the same cut, to blue and transferred the sitter from the photo studio into the room of his Škofja Loka apartment: instead on the little neo-baroque table with double-volute legs from the Trieste studio, her right arm rests on a discretely decorated chest of drawers with neo-baroque base, on which a precious pendulum table clock stands, and a chest-length portrait of her husband – painter’s father – is hung on the wall above the chest of drawers; through a window in front of which the lady is set a view opens over Škofja Loka, past the Ursuline church to the castle. Gvidon Birolla presented his mother in the domestic environment, in her native town of Škofja Loka. He did likewise in the portrait of his father. Fortunat, or Feliks, Birolla was half- Italian, half-Croat by birth, his native town was Pazin in the Istria. The painter must have relied on a photograph when he was painting the portrait because his father had died as early as 1884, when Gvidon had only three years. The sitter is set in an open stone built porch grown with vine bearing ripe grapes; far in the background a compact town of stone houses is seen on a hill, presumably Pazin, the father’s birthplace. Father’s facial features in this full-length oil portrait – it is the same size as mother’s portrait, 30.0 × 29.5 cm – are identical to those in his chest-length portrait, figuring as a painting within a painting in the artist’s full-length portrait of Antonija Birolla, where it is shown as hanging above the chest of drawers in the background. Author Mojca Jenko 2 June – 31 August 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Gvidon Birolla, Lady in a Violet Dress, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 351-012, overpainted albumen photograph from photographic studio of Ed. Lichtenstern, Trieste Photographic studio of Ed. Lichtenstern, Trieste, Full-length Female Portrait, (1870−1880), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 351-13 Gvidon Birolla, Antonija Birolla, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1966, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Gvidon Birolla, Feliks Birolla, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1965, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, September 2016 Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), the Last Patriarch of Monarchical Europe: on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Emperor’s Death Historians’ judgement about Emperor Franz Joseph I and his rule differs according to the viewpoint of their dealing with the 68-year reign of – apart from Empress Maria Theresa – certainly the most popular member of the Habsburg House. Supported by his reputation, he, like a patriarch, coordinated the imperial-royal state with the population of fifty million and the mixture of eleven ethnicities. He represented the majesty who personified the idea of an eternal monarchy in which he ruled as Supreme Official and scrupulously managed the vast empire. Franz Joseph was a monarch who was not Emperor only by name but who truly ruled. Although he was surrounded by a luxurious court and had to follow an elaborate ceremonial, the Emperor remained ascetic until the end of his life, proverbially known to have died in a military iron bed. During his long rule, the third longest among the European sovereigns, he enjoyed unshakeable glory, but fate was also extremely unkind to him, giving rise to tragic events in the closer circles of his relatives as well as to military and political defeats. Franz Joseph was born on August 18, 1830, and succeeded to the throne as early as the age of eighteen, replacing his sick uncle Ferdinand I. In 1854 he married a Bavarian duchess, Elisabeth (Sissi). The marriage was far from being romantically ideal as it seemed to be. The imperial couple had three daughters, one of whom died at the age of two, and a son – Crown Prince Rudolf, who tragically died in his thirty-first year of age. Nine years later Empress Sissi was assassinated by a mentally deranged anarchist. In 1914 the Emperor’s nephew Franz Ferdinand, now Crown Prince, was assassinated in Sarajevo. Franz Joseph himself died during World War I, on November 21, 1916. Learning from his life experience, the Emperor increasingly favoured the policy of keeping to the current state of affairs and to peace, but the militarism of his self-seeking generals generated political crises; in such a situation, with a multitude of political intricacies, the aged sovereign could do nothing better than act in such a way that it is possible to blame him for being a co-creator of World War I. Probably one of the most regrettable features of his character was the fact that as a pedantic official, sticking to conservative principles, he had no vision for the development of his state, which resulted in constant changes of the relations in European politics. The era of Franz Joseph’s rule was marked by technical and cultural progress of the vast empire. Significant seems to be the spreading of the rail network which represented a prerequisite for economic growth in the 19th century. During the reign of the »Supreme Official« the network in the Danubian monarchy developed from the modest kilometres in 1848 to the total length of 40,000 km by the time of the Emperor’s death. Extensive building works stamped a seal of homogeneity on individual town quarters. Constructed were standardized buildings of administrative premises, army barracks, school premises, museums, hospitals, railway stations, and even churches. This unified historicist »Franz Joseph« style emphasized the belonging to a common space. This was further enhanced by public monuments to members of the dynasty and estimable military commanders, through which individual places and institutions expressed their loyalty to the crown. In the Slovene lands, the era of the »Most Illustrious Emperor« saw the culture of the late Biedermeier, national revival of reading-room activities, romantic landscapes and realism in painting, and particularly the period of Slovene »Moderna« which at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century found expression in a happy unity of the »four elements«: architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature. But within this Danubian monarchy, the largest one on the Old Continent, a cultural-political image of individual nations was taking shape ever more definitely. When Austria-Hungary disintegrated at the end of World War I, this process resulted in the formation of new states. Among the Slavic nations, the Slovenes, too, »trained to build up statehood« both in political and cultural aspects, and with great expectations they transferred their sovereignty in 1918 to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, ruled by the Karađorđević House. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj 1 September – 5 October 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Johann Rauzi, Emperor Franz Joseph I, 1851, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1074, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Anton Karinger, Emperor Franz Joseph I in the Field Marshal Parade Uniform, 1862, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3193, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, October 2016 Frančišek Smerdu, Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath In 2012 the National Gallery of Slovenia received a donation of thirty-seven pieces in plaster and clay by sculptor Frančišek Smerdu (1908−1964). They were donated by the artist’s daughter, Mojca Smerdu, likewise an academically trained sculptor. Since they were received, the works have been in the process of restoration. Frančišek Smerdu finished his secondary school training in 1927 at the sculpture department of the Craft School in Ljubljana under sculptor Alojzij Repič (1866–1941). In the following year he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb which he finished in 1932. He subsequently also specialized in sculpture with Ivan Meštrović (1883–1962) who was his major influence in addition to his teacher of stone sculpture, Frano Kršinić (1897–1982). In 1946 Smerdu became professor at the newly established Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana where he worked until his death. He was a member of the Independents, a group of Slovene artists founded in 1937, who exhibited together and mainly promoted human figure in sculpture based on traditional realism but enriched by modernist tendencies. After the war, Smerdu also received public commissions (Monument to Ivan Cankar on the hill of Rožnik (1948), The Underground Resistance Fighter in Ljubljana (1952), Monument to France Prešeren in Kranj (1952)), but the most important is his small-scale sculpture in baked clay, bronze and stone. Smerdu’s creative urge most frequently found expression in poetic and refined female figures. In 1957 he designed four female nudes for the embellishment of the staircase leading to the Festival Hall in Ljubljana (Pionirski dom, Center za kulturo mladih): Reclining Female Nude with a Mask, Reclining Female Nude with Grapes, Reclining Female Nude with a Flute and Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath. These decorative allegorical nudes anticipate the change of body proportions in Smerdu’s work. The soft, rounded and full, smoothly modelled elongated female bodies, with long necks, proportionally diminished heads, wide hips, archaic facial characteristics indicated by a few features only, with stylized long hair, slender ankles on long legs and often furnished with attributes, such as flowers or a book, are aesthetically extremely sublime works which delicately convey the sense of complete absorption of the figures in their inner world. The animated plaster model for the figure of the Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath, which is, like the rest of the group of four, designed in the sense of Baroque reclining staircase figures, was restored in 2014 by Rebeka Vegelj, a student of restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, as the practical part of her diploma work. The statue had suffered numerous abrasions and incisions, the tops of several protruding volumes had been broken off. Within the scope of interventions cleaning was done, and because of the displeasing impression the broken off tip of the nose, parts on the chest and a finger of the right hand were remodelled. The missing toes of both feet were fashioned with the help of moulds made after the bronze statue in the Festival Hall. For the presentation of the statue in the Gallery’s exhibition room a pedestal was made with the same inclination as that of the stone fence of the Festival Hall staircase. We express our sincere thanks to the benefactor for her gift, which invaluably complements the sculpture collection of the National Gallery of Slovenia. Authors Mateja Breščak, Martina Vuga Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 October – 2 November 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Frančišek Smerdu, Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath, 1957, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 981, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Staircase to the Festival Hall, Ljubljana, (photo Mateja Breščak) Frančišek Smerdu, Reclining Female Nude with a Wreath, staircase to the Festival Hall, Ljubljana, (photo Mateja Breščak) Revelations, November 2016 On the Look and Meaning of a Baroque Painting in the Mid-19th Century Pavel Künl’s Sketchbook Drawing of the Altarpiece Mary Help of Christians by Michael Rottmayr from the Church of the Teutonic Order in Ljubljana, and the Restored Fragment of the Original Painting Featuring St Eleanor It was precisely three hundred years ago that the church of the Teutonic Order in Ljubljana received three outstanding altarpieces on commission from three Habsburg empresses, of whom the worthiest and the most devout was Empress Eleanor (1655‒1720), Emperor Leopold I’s widow. The paintings were executed in Vienna by three notable Baroque masters. The high altar was furnished with the work Mary Help of Christians by Michael Rottmayr (1654‒1730), the right-hand side altar with St Elizabeth of Hungary Distributing Alms to the Poor by the Flemish painter Anton Schoonjans (1655‒1726), and the left-hand side altar with St George Slaying the Dragon, a work by Martino Altomonte (1657‒1745). The two side altarpieces can still be seen in situ today, whereas Rottmayr’s painting on the high altar was badly damaged by a fire on 22 June 1857. Thanks to painter Pavel Künl (1817‒1871), the lower right-hand corner of the painting survives, featuring St Eleanor, the patron saint of the empress who placed the commission. According to the notes by the former owner of the fragment Edward von Strahl (1817–1884), Künl restored the damaged parts of the head and the left arm of the figure. It has been possible to guess at the original look of Rottmayr’s popular miraculous image from the painter’s surviving sketch of 1715 (kept in a private collection in north Italy) and from a variant of the motif by an anonymous master which in the first half of the 19th century was kept in Zois Mansion at Javornik (now housed in the Gornjesavski muzej Jesenice). In 2010 the National Gallery of Slovenia acquired a sketchbook of Pavel Künl in which a valuable document about the burnt painting is provided on one of the last leafs. On page 39v Künl made a drawing of the lower left-hand portion of the Rottmayr altarpiece which he could still see in situ. He presented the left group of the plague-ridden: an old man on crutches and a seated mother with a child in front of him, and in the background, in delicate drawing, there are two figures bringing a sick person on a stretcher. Also the architecture drawn behind the figures corresponds with Rottmayr’s preparatory sketch. The figures and the scene are rendered in a very delicate drawing, without shading and details, which suggests that it was made after the fatal fire which, after all, did not ruin the painting to the state of unrecognizability. Künl most likely made the drawing because of his sense as a restorer. Edward von Strahl, who acquired the fragment with St Eleanor for his art collection in Stara Loka (Altenlack), employed Künl as the keeper of his collection, and among the painter’s qualities as a restorer he underlined his skilful stylistic adaptation to original works and restriction solely to the most necessary painting interventions at damaged places. He described Künl mainly as a master copyist, who as a painter tended to rely on other classical examples. Drawing and copying older works of art, Baroque ones in particular, continued to be one of the key competences of a Vienna-academy-trained history painter as late as the mid-19th century. Pavel Künl and other Slovene painters of the first half and the middle of the 19th century who were active as artists in Carniola after their training in Vienna relied on older models also in their native environment, i.e. on certain key Baroque altarpieces in Ljubljana churches. To the most frequently copied or compositionally varied examples also belong the three above-mentioned altarpieces of the Teutonic Order church. Author Kristina Preininger Translation Alenka Klemenc 3 November – 30 November 2016 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Johann Michael Rottmayr, St Eleonor, 1716, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1099, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Pavel Künl, Drawing of the Lower Left-Hand Portion of the J. M. Rottmayr’s Altarpiece Mary Help of Christians, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 6170, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Johann Michael Rottmayr, Sketch for the Altarpiece Mary Help of Christians, 1715, private collection, (photo Križanke (ed. Luka Vidmar), Ljubljana 2018, p. 156) Revelations, December 2016 Michelangelo Unterberger, Adoration of the Shepherds and Adoration of the Magi Michelangelo Unterberger (1695–1758) was the first-born son in the family of South Tyrolean painter Christoph Unterberger. Also Michelangelo’s brother Franz Sebald and his nephews Ignaz and Christoph Unterberger were respected painters. When he was only sixteen he painted The Prophecy of Simeon the Elder for a church in Trentino and The Judgement of Solomon for Bolzano. After having been trained in his local environment, he left for Venice where he particularly carefully studied the painting of Nicola Grassi (1682–1748). He then became a citizen of Bolzano, and from there his paintings, mainly altarpieces, spread his fame across Tyrol and all the way to the Bavarian Passau by the Danube. In 1737 the painter moved to imperial Vienna where he incredibly rapidly ranked among the foremost masters of altar compositions and also among the artists with the honorary title of court painter. In 1751 Empress Maria Theresa conferred the title of »rector magnificus« upon him, and before his death he was twice appointed rector for painting, sculpture and architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. The two paintings in the National Gallery of Slovenia point to the time of Unterberger’s mature Viennese style, which is evidenced by the painter’s inscription on the back of the Adoration of the Magi: Michel Ang. Unterperger P: / Kays: Hofmaler bei M: Teresia / a Wien. With their picturesque expression and emphasis on Baroque loveliness, the pictures are typical examples of Rococo painting that was brought to Vienna by the masters who had immigrated from the Venetian art milieu. Not only is the general Venetian Rococo language recognizable in the two paintings, but both of them also confirm that Unterberger modelled his work on the examples of at least two concrete famous Venetian masters: for his painterly manner and figures he relied on Nicola Grassi and for the light-hearted eloquence on Francesco Fontebasso. Judging from the format, the paintings were used for private worship, while such motifs were also a picturesque complement to Christmas Nativity scenes popular with Baroque aristocracy. The paintings were donated to the National Gallery in 2010 by the renowned surgeon Dr. Zora Janžekovič (1918–2015), and according to her information, they come from some Styrian castle. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 1 December 2016 – 4 January 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Michelangelo Unterberger, Adoration of the Shepherds, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3384, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Michelangelo Unterberger, Adoration of the Magi, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3385, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, January 2017 Queen of Prussia in the National Gallery of Slovenia Prior to the renovation of the Narodni dom Palace and the new staging of art collections in the National Gallery of Slovenia, a fine portrait of a Lady in Polish Costume hung among the works of European masters. Its painter was unknown, and 1837 as the year of its execution was uncertain. The signature and the date on the canvas are damaged and do not allow reliable reading. A lucky find of comparative material helped to solve the problem of both the artist and the identity of the sitter. The painting proved to be by the German painter Wilhelm Ternite, and the lady depicted is Louise, Queen Consort of Prussia, the wife of King Frederick William III. The lovely Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1776–1810) married the Prussian crown prince of the Hohenzollern House when she was only seventeen. In 1797 her husband succeeded to the throne, but as a ruler he was greatly influenced by his determined wife. Through her patriotic political activity, beneficent deeds and amiable character, and certainly also because of her beauty, Queen Louise achieved enormous popularity among the population. She was a legend in her own lifetime and one of the most frequently portrayed aristocratic ladies in European history, with a multitude of posthumous depictions. The Gallery’s painting by Ternite is an example of a portrait painted many years after Louise’s death. Painter Wilhelm Ternite (1786–1871) was at the beginning of his career when, after training at the academy in Berlin and serving a few years in the army, he could paint Louise in 1810 when she was still alive. After the end of Napoleonic Wars he was sent as a commissioner to Paris to retrieve the works of art that the French had plundered from Prussia. He spent several years in the French capital, training in the studios of Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) and Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835). In the 1820s he visited Italy and painted scenes from his travels after which prints were made and published in series. After his return home he became painter to the court and was appointed in 1926 inspector of royal art collections in Potsdam and around, which he remained until his retirement in 1864. He made his name portraying the wider royal family and other notables of Prussian high society. The Gallery painting shows Queen Louise in a parade uniform of the Dragoon Regiment. Ternite portrayed Louise in a riding habit »à la hussarde« in 1810 before she died, and this picture became a prototype for a number of reprises. The relationship of Louise with the Dragoons was also formal, since the king nominated her in 1806 as chief (or honorary colonel) of the Dragoon Regiment No. 5 which was then renamed the Regiment of Queen’s Dragoons No. 5. Her role was naturally just ceremonial. Among her preserved clothes are also her Dragoon spencer jacket and the chemisette she wore underneath, both from 1806. Thus the painter had authentic attire at his disposal while painting Louise decades after her death. As far as it has been possible to establish, at least two painted replicas of the Gallery portrait exist as well as a print, but in all of them Louise’s headdress is different from the Gallery’s. So what is the point of the Polish krakuska in our case? To answer this question remains a task for the future – as does a reliable answer to the problem of the date and the provenance of the painting. The National Gallery acquired it in 1986 when it took charge of the art collections of the Slovene government. At that time the portrait hung in Brdo Castle near Kranj. A tempting explanation for the painting’s arrival in Carniola is offered by aristocratic kinship connections. The seventh child out of ten of the Prussian royal couple was a daughter, Alexandrine (1803–1892). In 1822 she married Paul Friedrich, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1800–1842), and their second-born child, Luise (1824–1859), married in 1849 Hugo, Prince of Windischgrätz (1823–1904), and came to live in Wagensberg Castle (Bogenšperk) in Carniola. It might be then that the portrait of her grandmother, Queen Louise, came with her. Naturally, it might have also come later, for the Windischgrätz couple’s daughter Marie (1856–1929) married »back« to the Mecklenburg family, her husband being Duke Paul Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. However, she continued to spend much of her time in Carniola. The Windischgrätz family remained the owners of Wagensberg Castle until the end of WW2, but they had moved away already in 1943 and took with them most of their possessions. How the Gallery painting – provided it was really with them – survived through the following turbulent decades and finished in the protocol building at Brdo is not known. The proposed provenance remains a mere hypothesis until clear – or conflicting – evidence is found. Whatever the case may be, the excellent Ternite portrait perfectly complements the Biedermeier portraiture collection in the National Gallery of Slovenia. Author Alenka Klemenc Translation Alenka Klemenc 5 January – 1 February 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Wilhelm Ternite, Queen Louise of Prussia in Dragoon Parade Uniform, (1837?), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2128, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Wilhem Ternite, Queen Louise of Prussia in Riding Habit à la »Hussarde«, 1810, Potsdam, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg, (photo http://www.altertuemliches.at) Spencer Jacket of Louise’s Dragoon Parade Uniform, 1806, Dresden, Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr, (photo https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com) Revelations, February 2017 Zoran Mušič: Transformations in Painting Technology Zoran Mušič (1909–2005), one of the most prominent 20th century European painters, produced his works of art, whether on canvas or paper, with incredible perseverance all until his old age. He perfectly mastered all painting and drawing techniques alongside a wide range of graphic techniques. A spur to analysing the painting technology of works by Mušič was provided by the staging of a permanent exhibition, Art Collection of Ljuban, Milada and Vanda Mušič, which is on display in the National Gallery of Slovenia. The overview exhibition of the painter’s works was rendered possible through the donation by the family of Mušič’s brother; it features works of small and medium formats dating from between 1935 and 1999. Even though we speak about matter, physical material, which in principle is more tangible in final judgement than the content of a motif, Mušič’s paintings evade clear definitions and one-sided explanations. Mušič received his first art training from painter Anton Gvajc (1865–1935) who taught drawing from life and watercolour painting at the teacher training school for boys in Maribor. He acquired the skill of easel painting technology at the art academy in Zagreb which drew on the Central European painting technology. The classical, or traditional, stratigraphy of an easel painting consists of a wooden stretcher (the frame upon which the canvas is stretched), canvas (support), isolation coat of size, glue-and-chalk primer or gesso (usually white surface on which paint is applied), oil paint layer, and finish with varnish. Mušič graduated in 1934 with Professor Ljubo Babić (1890–1974) and set out on a painting career of his own. As author Gojko Zupan says, Mušič was known in Maribor as a painter of oils and gouaches. Also later, while on his study journey to Spain and subsequently during his stay in Ljubljana, he worked in parallel at both techniques, and in terms of technical aspect he kept close to his academic experience. But he translated the gouache methodology into oil painting. Also in his later creative periods it is possible to observe methodological shifts from painting and drawing techniques to oil painting. In his mature and old-age periods he turned to them also in terms of material not only methodology. After the traumatic Dachau experience (1944–1945), which marked him for life, the first major departure from the »school« technology and painting occurred with his moving to Venice. Varnish as the finish of a painting never appears on his canvases again. Dry, washed-out, or velvet surface with minimal lustre becomes the essential feature of his painting throughout the rest of his career. He also worked in watercolours in his Venetian period and produced his first graphic prints. Paris, where he moved in 1952 with his wife, Ida Cadorin, represented for him a source of creativity and energy. He puts it like this: »Nowhere else in the world one can find light like this.« Paris became the place where the painter lived and worked for the next five decades, with interim returns to Venice, the Kras, Dalmatia, the Dolomites … The painter was forced into the next technological change because of his allergy to turpentine. For almost two decades he had to give up oil painting, which had been the breath of life to him. His first painting executed in the acrylic technique, which was a technical innovation at that time and the only alternative to oil medium (Dalmatian Hill, 1966), is exhibited in the National Gallery’s collection. It is typical of Mušič’s Parisian life period that he was becoming ever more interested in the canvas–primer–paint relationship and ever more playful in its handling. The white primer that had formerly had its thickness and character was steadily becoming thinner and thinner already during his time in Venice. The structure of the canvas was becoming ever more clearly visible. The most radical changes, in terms of both material and motif, can be observed in the first of his two series We Are Not the Last (1974). He completely excluded the primer for some time, and applied acrylic paint to a naked, raw canvas, which neither a non-professional eye can overlook. Naked canvas – its woven structure and tint – becomes an active visual element, a visible co-creator of the motif. In the next decade (1980–1990) he reintroduced the primer and oil medium to his easel painting. This period was very rich and varied in his painting technology. It was mainly dedicated to the study of the primer’s function and its changing. He concurrently returned to oil medium; drawing techniques ever more frequently crossed over to canvas. The more he approached old age, the less physical material can be found on the support, the greater is the power and expression of his motifs. He says: »In my pictures, I want to make everything from nothing. Perhaps I ask for too much.« Mušič’s oeuvre shows that painting technology never limited or determined his expression. He fully mastered each of the techniques he employed; he completely subordinated them to his creative will and used traditional skills in a way that had never been seen before. Throughout he observed the basic laws and followed the tradition of painting technology, but with regard to the needs of each individual motif he, in an innovative way, altered the features of individual elements and particularly their function. Author Simona Škorja 2 February – 1 March 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Zoran Mušič, Dalmatian Hill, 1966, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3479, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, March 2017 Jakob Savinšek: Draft for a Monument to Architect Jože Plečnik Sculptor Jakob Savinšek (1922–1961) belongs among the leading representatives of Slovene modernist sculpture. After having finished classical grammar school during the Second World War, he attended drawing lessons with painter Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943). In 1945 he registered as a student at the newly established fine arts academy in Ljubljana, where he studied under the brothers Zdenko (1911–1990) and Boris Kalin (1905–1975), Frančišek Smerdu (1908–1964) and Peter Loboda (1894–1952). In the 1950s he extensively travelled across Europe, and in 1961, jointly with his colleague sculptor Janez Lenassi (1927–2008), he encouraged the establishment of international symposia of sculpture in Slovenia, the so-called Forma viva. Savinšek is a representative of an intermediate phase of sculpture in Slovenia, between the older and the younger sculptors’ generations. During his extremely short creative career he passed from traditional realistic figural concepts to abstract solutions. His early public monuments were closer to the established realism (Monument to Julius Kugy at Trenta (1952)), but he later managed to include modernist paradigm also in his outdoor works that were executed on commission (The National Liberation War Monument at Griček (1954–1961), Monument to Author Ivan Tavčar, Visoko near Poljane (1957), Monument to Poet Simon Gregorčič, Kobarid (1958)). Writing about Jakob Savinšek in 1955, Luc Menaše said about him: »At the side of the few older sculptors, at the side of the two Kalin brothers, Putrih and Smerdu, among a few promising ones, and at the side of numerous artisans, a tall, determined man has emerged, tenacious, soberly contemplating, but also of a zealous spirit. No sooner had we taken a good notice of him that he already stood right in the first row, and he doesn’t even seem to be satisfied with it.« Jakob Savinšek was an explicit figural sculptor, since a great number of well-thought out, psychologically characterized portraits conspicuously mark his oeuvre. During the period of Socialist Realism portraits became a less important task in sculpture because priority was given to motifs of the National Liberation War and those of work and workers. The only exceptions were portraits of prominent politicians. In the 1950s Savinšek gradually transformed his figures into pure forms by means of omitting realistic details but keeping recognizable identification features. The Draft for a Monument to Architect Jože Plečnik that never came to be realized was made in 1957, the year of the architect’s death. Designed in an elegant soft line, stylized and simplified, but monumental at the same time in its intimacy, it offers a spectator a dynamic view from all around. In his search for pure expressive forms the sculptor relied on Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) and Henry Moore (1898–1986) and transformed his draft into simplified curves envisaged as signs, yet the indicated basic facial characteristics render possible the identification of the great architect. The portrait emanates tension, vitality and creativity, thus capturing the spirit of Plečnik. The psychologically meaningful draft belongs to the Government Art Collection within the holdings of the National Gallery of Slovenia and was purchased from the artist in 1960 by the then Council of Education and Culture. By presenting Jakob Savinšek’s draft for a monument to Plečnik the National Gallery of Slovenia commemorates the 145th anniversary of the birth and the 60th anniversary of the death of the famous Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik (1872–1957). Author Mateja Breščak 2 March – 5 April 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Jakob Savinšek, Draft for a Monument to Jože Plečnik, 1957, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 749, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, April 2017 The Tears of Achilles Cameo Thanks to their beauty, meticulous execution, multi-coloured stones, and variety of iconographic motifs, cameos have been objects of admiration for long centuries. From among several thousands of them, certain cameos won special popularity in the course of time, both with the artists and art collectors, and they were copied just like many of the best Classical and Renaissance works of art were. In a private collection in Slovenia a quality cameo in agate was found recently which has not been dealt with in scholarly literature before. For the time being, its engraver, the time of execution, and the provenance remain unidentified. The cameo was made on the model of an incomplete cameo of sardonyx dating from the 1st century B.C. The scene it depicts has been related by researchers to two Classical stories, either to Homer’s epic poem The Iliad or to Euripides’ play Iphigenia in Tauris. Depicted in white relief against a dark background are a standing male figure to the right and a warrior entering through a door more to the left; only half of the door has been preserved, with a curtain and a volute on the top. Next to the warrior a fragment of another figure – a hand with some drapery – can be seen. To the left a seated male figure has also been partly preserved: his bent head, which the youth supports with his right hand, and part of his legs. This cameo is believed to have been found by a peasant in the surroundings of Rome and sold for little money to Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692‒1779). Afterwards the cameo changed several owners. Its fame spread shortly after 1760, when the German archaeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717‒1768) published it under the name The Tears of Achilles in his book in which he described the celebrated gem collection of Baron Philipp von Stosch (1691‒1757), a collector of gems and a pioneer in their study. Winckelmann identified the fragmentarily preserved motif as a scene from Homer’s Iliad (XVIII, 15‒34): on the instruction by Menelaus, Antilochus, son of Nestor, leaves the battlefield and rushes to inform Achilles, who already had a sense of misgiving, about the sad news of Patroclus’ death and destiny. In 1921 the cameo was purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it is kept under the title Orestes and His Friend Pylades. The fact is that on the basis of related scenes on Roman sarcophagi John Davidson Beazley (1885‒1970), archaeologist, art historian and professor, identified the motif as Orestes’ farewell from Pylades in Tauris. The cameo became the prototype for numerous new gems ‒ copies, variants, and casts, which can now be found both in private and public collections all over the world. But because it was preserved only fragmentarily, artists added the missing part out of their own invention. In the presently discussed cameo a female figure wearing a Phrygian cap is added behind the seated man, and the door is presented in full. In the 18th and 19th centuries, gem engravers mastered both copying Classical glyptics and creating new compositions which, however, often relied on compositions from other art branches, such as vase painting and reliefs on Roman sarcophagi. The Antiquity created several images that became the standard for later depictions and were given several interpretations in the course of centuries. Because of combinations of individual elements from different art branches it is unfortunately impossible to state reliably which art models served the artists to complement the missing fragment. Author Alenka Simončič Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 April – 3 May 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana The Grief of Achilles over Patroclus’ Death, private collection, Slovenia, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Cameo with Orestes, Seated, and His Friend Pylades, (1st Century B.C.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (photo https://collections.mfa.org) Revelations, May 2017 Empress Maria Theresa, the Ruler of the Great Austrian Empire and Enlightened Reformer On the 300th anniversary of the birth of the monarch Maria Theresa of Habsburg (1717–1780), who also reigned over the Slovenian lands for forty years, the present ‘Revelations’ discuss her portrait in grand manner that was executed in the painting workshop of Martin van Meytens the Younger (1695–1770). After training in his father’s workshop in Stockholm, Meytens improved his skills of portraiture in London, Paris, and Italy. In 1730 he settled for good in Vienna, where he was appointed painter to the court, and in 1759 also director of the imperial Academy of Fine Arts. The portrait was said to have been executed »in his workshop«, since the artist was overloaded with commissions and did not manage to do all the work himself. For that reason he employed specialized masters who elaborated the work he had conceived to the tiniest detail. Among these specialists was also his niece and pupil, Sophonia de Derichs (1712–1773), who was capable of depicting masterly the materiality and rustle of precious costumes and jewellery. Commissions of grand-manner dynastic portraits required from the workshop to produce routine solutions, which also holds true of the present, 280 cm high full-length portrait of the empress in the National Gallery of Slovenia. The painting comes from the Baroque palace Leopoldsruhe, the present-day Cekinov grad (Cekin Castle), in Ljubljana. It was built by Count Leopold Lamberg (1732–1809) who, besides doing several other state services, was also imperial Privy Councillor (Geheimrat). Out of need for prestige, his status naturally required the possession of a grand-manner portrait of the monarch. The portrait is neither signed nor dated, but taking account of the iconographic whole we can date it into the latter half of the 1740s, which also corresponds to the youthful appearance of Maria Theresa. She stands next to a richly decorated table on which a red velvet cushion with sovereign insignia is laid. The fur »crown« is the so-called archducal hat (Erzherzogshut) which was already laid in her cradle. But in the War of the Austrian Succession, which she still had to fight out, the following two crowns consolidated her position of the Austrian sovereign: in 1741 she was crowned Queen of Hungary, which is evidenced by the crown of St Stephen and the appertaining sceptre; and in 1743, one day before she was twenty-six, she was also crowned Queen of Bohemia in Prague, as evidenced by the crown of St Wenceslas in the background. Although the iconography of the painting is very eloquent, it should be noted that no portrait of the Austrian monarch shows the imperial crown. It is true that she is generally called Empress (Kaiserin, Imperatrice), but after the coronation in 1745 the title belonged solely to her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, and not to her although she had been his wife since 1736. When she became a widow, the imperial crown came down to her son, Joseph II, since by law the crown of the »Holy Roman Empire« belonged exclusively to male rulers. However, on the grounds of her extraordinary successful forty-year reign, her subjects and the following generations acknowledged her the title of Empress. Taking into account her ability to consolidate the reputation and balance of the Austrian Empire among the European monarchies, she could even deserve the tag of »the Great«. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj 4 May – 31 May 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Martin Van Meytens the Younger, Empress Maria Theresa, (after 1742), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1350, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, September 2017 Ivana Kobilca and the Kessler Salon After Marija Kessler had moved to Ljubljana with her husband and four young daughters, the family regularly hosted Slovenian intellectuals and participants in Slovenian Modernism in their apartment at today’s Prešernova 4 and in their villa under Osojnica in Bled. The Kessler salon, knowingly or not, followed a long line of bourgeoisie gatherings that from the French Enlightenment onwards presented a melting pot of class and vocations, an arena of ideas and views, and a web of acquaintances, friendships and romance. Salons gave rise to women hosts and women participants. Until the 20th century, women education was restricted to home economics, religion and teaching, and salons represented a unique opportunity for women to be exposed to avant-garde ideas. The hosts opened their homes and thoughtfully invited guests, housed them, introduced them to each other, read their letters aloud and kept in contact through regular correspondence. Salon was not limited to a salla, a hall. Faster and reliable postal network meant that letters, followed by postcards, telegrams, and photographs travelled to places large and small, wherever the people stopped. Preserved examples of correspondence partially reveal salons’ dynamics, but mostly present jottings of personal relationships that inspired artists. If Marija Kessler (1860–1939) was the host of the salon, then her daughters and their friends were its soul. Mici (1890–1962) and Ani Kessler (1891–1967) and their younger sisters Vera (1895–1971) and Slava (1896–1961), Melita Levec (1893–1917), Dana Kobler (1891–1929), and Mira Pintar (1891–1929) inspired artists such as Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), Oton Župančič (1878–1949), and Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926). Ivan Cankar fell in love with Mici Kessler and dedicated to her the character of Milena in his short novel Novo življenje (New Life) and a collection of short stories Za križem (After the Cross). Parts of his triptych Volja in moč (Will and Power) are named after Melitta Levec, Mira Pintar and Dana Kobler. Oton Župančič and Ani Kessler fell in love with each other and were married. She and their three children were one of the greatest inspirations for the poet. In the period between 1907 and the First World War, when the Kessler salon was most active, Ivana Kobilca was living in Berlin, but during her stays in homeland, and also later, she portrayed many of the participants. Most well-known are her portraits of Mici Čop, née Kessler, Ani Župančič, née Kessler, her husband Oton Župančič, Dana Golia, née Kobler, and Mira Pintar, Kobilca’s niece. It was Mira Pintar, together with Cankar, who introduced Kobilca into the Kessler circle, where the painter found new patrons. She visited the Kesslers in Ljubljana and in Bled and hosted them during her stay in Bohinjska Bela. Her portraits of the members of the Kessler salon are a testament to an exceptionally productive period of Slovenian art and complement the eternal triangle between the muses, literature, and fine arts. Author Michel Mohor 7 September – 4 October 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivana Kobilca, Mici Čop, née Kessler, (1922–1923), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1756, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, October 2017 Our Lady of the Rosary Altarpiece in the Church at Šmarna Gora and Matevž Langus’ Sketchbooks in the National Gallery of Slovenia Depictions of the Marian Rosary motif culminated in the 19th century both in the number of images and in the number of iconographic variants. Particularly after 1840 the production of this type of images increased and they were primarily meant to encourage the piety of the believers. At the expense of the earlier devotional motif of the Virgin of Mercy, the motif of Our Lady of the Rosary was at that time taking over mainly protective emphases. This is evident in the variants which include local landscapes at the bottom of the scene, so that it is possible to talk about locally characterized Virgins of the Rosary. We can find such solutions in the religious paintings by Jožef Tominc, Mihael Stroj, Franz Kurz von Goldenstein, and Matevž Langus. The paintings are most often bipartite and their upper part compositionally follows the Counter-Reformation tradition. The central group of figures is composed of the Virgin, seated on a cloud and holding little Jesus in her arms, and Sts. Dominic and Catherine of Siena by her sides, each of whom is receiving a rosary from Mary and/or from Jesus. Mary is usually depicted as Queen, and immaculistic emphases can often be found too. The described pattern was also followed in the painting mounted in the high altar of the popular pilgrimage church at Šmarna Gora. In spite of its exposed position the altarpiece continues to withhold the information on the time of its execution and its painter. Possibly, the story of its origin can be better understood with the help of the drawings in the sketchbooks of painter Matevž Langus (1792–1855), kept in the National Gallery of Slovenia. Highly indicative seems to be the drawing on page 15r in the sketchbook NG G 137, where we can see a precise depiction of the lower section of the altarpiece with a landscape view: the view from Grmada towards the saddle and towards the top of Šmarna Gora with the church and with pilgrims who are climbing up towards it. On page 29r of the same sketchbook, there is the segment of the scene that is missing in the drawing on the extreme right of the slope, where the path rises steep from the saddle and passes by a homestead on the left and a wooden stable on the right. The drawing corresponds exactly with the painted landscape and staffage figures in the altar painting. Thus, it is possible that Langus at least participated in the execution of the painting with the bottom part of the scene. On the other hand, the upper part with the main characters does not reveal any characteristics of his hand. Because there are a number of other motifs from Šmarna Gora in the above-mentioned Langus sketchbook, also direct drafts for his frescoes in the dome of the nave, the origin of the altarpiece can be tentatively placed in the winter of 1846/1847, because in these two years, between spring and autumn, Langus frescoed the church. In terms of content, the Rosary painting at Šmarna Gora and the frescoed scenes in the dome are complementary. The pointing right hand of St Dominic, who is receiving a rosary from the Virgin, obviously calls attention to the church and emphasized groups of the ascending pilgrims. Even these tiny figures can be recognized as wearing ethnic costumes – just like the big kneeling figures of pilgrims in the fresco. The latter express their humility and devotion to Mary and to the traditional prayer by holding rosaries in their hands. The message of the altarpiece and the painted decoration of the dome are thus joined in a visualized symbolic answer to the Josephinian and Jansenistic suppression of pilgrimages and points to the then re-authorized devotions, of which the central place in the church at Šmarna Gora belonged to the Rosary. Author Kristina Preininger Translation Alenka Klemenc 5 October – 1 November 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matevž Langus, Our Lady of the Rosary, painting in the high altar of the church at Šmarna gora, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Frescos in the dome of the nave at Šmarna gora, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Frescos in the dome of the nave at Šmarna gora, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Sketch for the lower part of the altarpiece at Šmarna gora, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Sketch for the lower part of the altarpiece at Šmarna gora, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, November 2017 The Ecstasy of St John of Nepomuk The painting comes from the chapel of the countryside mansion Črni Potok (Schwarzenbach) south of Šmartno pri Litiji in the former Carniola. Besides this painting, there were also four tondi by Metzinger in the chapel, featuring the Doctors of the Church. All were purchased in 1960 by the National Gallery of Slovenia. They date from around the year 1740, when the mansion was owned by the Apfaltrern barons. The well-kept building is now part of a health centre and also houses the old people’s home called Dom Tisje. Valentin Metzinger (1699–1759), who was active in Ljubljana in the Baroque period and was one of the most prominent painters in the city, painted the ecstasy of St John of Nepomuk in a well-balanced coordination between form and emotional content. The figures of the angel and the Saint are most happily united inside the exacting format of an oval. Their interwoven postures give perfect harmony to the work, further enhanced by a careful selection of colours. A special emphasis is given to the content by the focused theatrical illumination of the limited space; it comes as God’s light from the direction of the Saint’s rapturous gaze. The priest kneels before the prie-dieu on which the breviary and his biretta are laid; he holds a crucifix in his right hand, while his left hand is elegantly pressed against his chest in the usual Baroque fashion to emphasize psychologically his ecstatic absorption. The Saint is easily recognized by his established attributes, above all the fur almutia, or mozzetta respectively, the sign of his membership in the cathedral chapter of priests. The golden cross hung on a blue ribbon around his neck is yet another sign of his being a canon. The service of bishop’s deputy – during the forced absence of Jan of Jenštejn, Archbishop of Prague, St John of Nepomuk performed the archbishop’s duties – is underlined by three keys offered to the Saint by an angel. Because of his observance of the Seal of the Confessional, since he refused to divulge the secret of the queen’s confession to her tyrannical husband, King Wenceslaus IV, as the medieval legend tells, he was tortured in 1393 and finally thrown from the Prague Bridge to drown in the Vltava. This virtue of the Saint is suggested by the angel’s gesture of the forefinger on his mouth. Painted above Saint John’s head is a tiny circular halo, although it was usually painted in the form of five stars which, according to a legend, pointed to the spot where the Saint’s dead body was lying, having been washed ashore. In fact, the five stars symbolize the Seal of Confession that was the cause of his execution: namely, the Latin five-letter word »taqui« translates as »I kept silent«. Often also a palm frond is added to Nepomuk’s depictions as a universal Christian symbol of martyrdom. St John of Nepomuk (his real family name was Wölflin) was initially venerated only in the Bohemian lands, but in 1729 his worship was proclaimed for the entire Catholic world, with his feast day on May the 16th. His priestly role was particularly emphasized by the Jesuits, and during the Counter-Reformation struggle they included him among their patron saints, even though he had died long before the foundation of the Society of Jesus (1534). His mortal remains rest in a magnificent silver coffin which is the object of central interest in the Prague Cathedral of St Vitus. An important role in the canonization of the Saint was played by the former Bishop of Ljubljana, Count Ferdinand Kuenburg of Gorizia, who was later, from 1711 until his death in 1731, Archbishop of Prague. St John of Nepomuk is the patron saint of priests, of the Seal of Confession, and against slander. His statues used to be placed on bridges as a plea for guardianship in general and against floods in particular as well as against accidents of drowning. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj 2 November – 6 December 2017 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Valentin Metzinger, The Ecstasy of St John of Nepomuk, (c. 1740), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1555, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, December 2017 Gloria in excelsis Deo Pre-Christmastide, or Advent, is the time of preparations for Christmas joy, which in the past centuries was pervaded by in-depth experience of the Gospel story of the birth of Jesus. The Nativity scenes in the Slovenian lands were first set up in the 17th century in monasteries or convents, particularly those of the city-related religious orders, such as the Jesuits or the Franciscans and the Poor Clares or the Ursulines. From the city-monastery milieu they spread to the countryside. So the story was presented to the medieval common people only in frescoes and carved wooden altars, of which only a few examples have been preserved in our country. A complex insight into the spirituality of the Late Middle Ages is lavishly offered by the fresco of the Adoration of the Magi in St Nicholas’ chapel of ease at Mače near Preddvor. What harmony between the legend of the grey-bearded Saint Nicholas bringing gifts to children, with his feast day on the 6th of December, and the Three Magi bringing gifts to the newborn Jesus and paying homage to Him! The so-called Master of Mače frescoed in 1467 the entire inner surface of the north wall with splendid scenes of the Procession and Adoration of the Magi, as described in the Gospel according to Matthew. The Mače Gospel story is supposed to be one of the most beautiful illustrations of the Magi story in the Slovene lands. Because a window was built into the wall in the Baroque period, the large scene was split in two, and the right-hand half is presented here, featuring the Adoration of the Magi. The three »kings« of different age have arrived with their retinue and the oldest has just knelt down before the newly born Infant seated in His mother’s arms; behind the Holy Virgin we can see the traditional genre figure of Saint Joseph who is taking off his hat before the splendid royal procession. The crown of the first, grey-bearded man is held by his page, because the old king has taken it off before the King of Heaven. He is handing a golden gift to the Infant, and exotic presents are also held by the remaining two kings. The courtiers in the company are genuine contemporaries of young men of the Renaissance courts. The Bethlehem episode takes place in front of a small wooden stable or stall typical of the Alpine regions, with the indispensable donkey and ox inside it. The background closes with a wide panoramic view of a phantasy depiction of Jerusalem where the holy travellers started their way to Bethlehem, led reliably by the six-pointed star, which finally stopped above the small stable. The frescoes of 1467 in the chapel of ease above the village of Mače are the only work attributed to the anonymous painter with the provisional name of Master of Mače. He comes from the workshop of Master Bolfgangus, best known for his fresco of the Nativity from 1453 in the church at Crngrob and frescoes in the church at Mirna in the region of Dolenjska (former Lower Carniola) from 1463–1465. The similarity between the two painters is so great that one might even think of a single person; however, this only demonstrates the artistic origin of Master of Mače. In the works by both of the two anonymous painters idealism, inherited from the style of International Gothic of the early 15th century and manifest in the beauty of the depicted faces and in elegant gestures, is combined with contemporary realism which was brought to the Slovenian lands from northern countries and is evident in the two painters’ works mainly in logical presentation of the painted decoration. Hence, these frescoes, with their glorious splendour and beautifying idealism represent one of the peaks in the quality of Late Gothic wall paintings in Slovenia. The frescoes of Mače are also important because of their stylistic origins in the late 15th century in central Carniola. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 7 December 2017 – 4 February 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Master of Mače, Adoration of the Magi, copy of a fresco, Mače near Preddvor, St Nicholas’ Chapel of Ease, copied by Izidor Mole, 1961, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1586, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, January 2018 Destiny of a Painting In addition to stylistic features, archival documents likewise corroborate Antonio Bellucci (1654–1726) as the author of the painting Pietà. His oeuvre belongs to the sphere of Venetian Baroque painting already heralding the poetry of the picturesque Rococo. His style stems from the Venetian painting grafted onto the aesthetics of Bolognese academism and the sensual figural idiom of master Pietro Liberi (1605−1687) of Venice. Around the year 1690, painting commissions attracted Bellucci to the court of Vienna, and also to other private and ecclesiastical patrons (Klosterneuburg). He continued his artistic career in Germany and England, but he died in his birthplace, Pieve di Soligo in Veneto. The Tyrol-born merchant of Ljubljana Jakob Schell von Schellenburg (1652–1715), who lived in the Carniolan capital already before 1684 and until his death, was also well informed in the fine arts. He intended a family burial space for himself and his wife Anna Katharina to be arranged in the chapel of St John the Baptist in the former Franciscan Church which stood on the site of the present-day central market in Ljubljana. However, the couple later decided to have their final place of rest in the Ursuline church. In 1694 Schell commissioned a Holy Cross altarpiece for the said chapel and the Bellucci Pietà was mounted on its predella. The contract for the altarpiece stipulated that it was »primo Mastro di Venetia« that should execute the marble sculpture; the master has recently proved to be Paolo Callalo (1655–1725). After the Josephinian suppression of the Franciscan monastery the altarpiece was sold in 1787 to the church at Hrenovice near Postojna where it still finds its present whereabouts but has been considerably rearranged. A long time before the altarpiece was moved, i.e. around the year 1740, for an unknown reason the Bellucci painting was replaced with a variant of the Pietà motif by Valentin Metzinger (1699–1759) which, however, remained with the Ljubljana Franciscans when the altarpiece went to Hrenovice. The reputation of the Bellucci work is confirmed by the copy that was made even prior to Meztinger’s variant for an unidentified patron by Giulio Quaglio (1668–1751) at the time when he was frescoing Ljubljana Cathedral. The whereabouts of the dethroned Bellucci canvas remain unknown until the beginning of the previous century when it was mentioned to be at Šmarje - Sap in Dolenjska (Lower Carniola), and in 1935 it was acquired by the National Gallery of Slovenia as an anonymous work. It was later attributed to Quaglio, but after a recent restoration and stylistic analyses it proved to be a work by Bellucci. In the current enlarged permanent collection of the National Gallery of Slovenia it figures as one of the most interesting »new« acquisitions. Author Ferdinand Šerbelj Translation Alenka Klemenc 4 January – 31 January 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Antonio Bellucci, Pietà, (before 1694), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1114, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, February 2018 Moritz Michael Daffinger, The Daughters of Cecrops Discovering the Infant Erichthonius, (after 1808) The motif of how the daughters of Cecrops discovered the infant Erichthonius, in our case presented on a porcelain plate, is very rare in the visual arts. It relates to one of the earliest myths about the city of Athens. When the goddess Athena went to fetch limestone rocks from the Pallene in Achaea to use in fortifying the Acropolis of Athens, she gave a wicker box to the three daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens, to take care of it, but warned them never to open it. The scene depicted on the plate shows the moment when the sisters Aglaurus, Herse and Pandrosus, overcome by curiosity, open the box despite the ban. They find a sweet infant boy inside, Erichthonius, who, to their horror, has two snakes instead of legs. In some variants of the myth a snake is coiled around his body that Athena has laid by the boy for protection. The story was told by several ancient authors; the scene on this plate follows the account in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2.562‒565) which says that two sisters obeyed Athena’s order, but the third one opened the basket nevertheless. The news was brought to Athena by a crow which is perched on a branch of a tree in the present scene. Unlike other authors, Ovid does not report on the punishment of Cecrops’ daughters for their curiosity and disobedience; elsewhere it is said that, being terrified at the view of the infant, they went insane, threw themselves off the Acropolis and were killed. The snake fled from the basket and found shelter on the aegis of Athena. The Greek scholar Apollodorus (c. 180 BC‒120 BC) tells the story of Athena visiting the smith-god Hephaestus to see how the making of her armour was going on. Hephaestus, lonely and deserted by Aphrodite, was overcome by desire and tried to rape her, but she managed to fight him off. His semen thus fell on the ground, or on Athena’s thigh from where, in disgust, she wiped it away by a scrap of wool and flung it to the earth. The Earth – Gaia then gave birth to Erichthonius, and Athena took care of the baby in secret, without the knowledge of other gods. She laid the boy in a wicker basket and handed it to one of Cecrops’ daughters. Apollodorus continues the story in the same way as it is described above and adds that after the death of the girls Athena took Erichthonius to her temple where he grew up. Later on, he took over the rule in Athens, made the sacred image of Athena, erected a temple to the goddess on the Acropolis, and founded the Panathenaia in her honour. Hyginus (Poetical Astronomy 2.13) and Virgil (Georgics, 3.13) add that Erichthonius invented the quadriga on which he competed at games. Zeus was greatly fascinated by his inventiveness of being the first human to harness horses to the four-in-hand, in which only the sun god Helios had succeeded before. Hence, after Erichthonius’ death Zeus turned him into the constellation of the Charioteer (Lat. Auriga). Erichthonius was often identified with the mythical king of Athens Erechteus who was likewise believed to have been born from the earth and brought up by Athena. According to Homer, Athena housed him in the temple of Erechtheion which can still be admired on the Acropolis of Athens. There were tombs of mythical kings Cecrops and Erechtheus (Erechthonius) in the temple, the sacred olive tree used to grow by its side, Athena’s gift to the Athenians which she summoned from the earth when she competed against Poseidon for patronage of the Attica region. Athena was the winner, since Poseidon’s gift was a fresh spring he called from the ground, but whose water was salty and therefore useless for the inhabitants. The spring of water, also called the Sea of Erechtheus, is shown on the plate in the background, in the shade of trees. The author of the plate, the Austrian miniature painter Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790–1849), transferred a now lost drawing by Franc Kavčič/Caucig (1755–1828) on it. In 1808, Kavčič became Head and Supervisor of the Painting Department of the Viennese porcelain factory which was the second oldest in Europe, preceded only by the Porcelain Manufactory of Meissen. Moritz Michael was the son of porcelain painter Johann Leopold Daffinger (1748–1796), and at the age of eleven he was accepted as an apprentice in the porcelain manufacture. He later studied at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy where in 1820 Kavčič was appointed Director of the Painting and Sculpture School. The scene on the plate demonstrates typical characteristics of Kavčič’s idiom; besides, Daffinger translated paintings by numerous other famous artists on porcelain, among them also Peter Paul Rubens and Angelika Kauffmann, for example. Author Alenka Simončič Translation Alenka Klemenc 1 February – 28 February 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Moritz Michael Daffinger, Cecrops’ Daughters Discover Erichtonius, (after 1808), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3475, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, March 2018 Gregorio Lazzarini, Rinaldo and Armida in Enchanted Garden, (c. 1690) Rinaldo, the central character in the Jerusalem Delivered byTorquatto Tasso (1544‒1595), and the fiercest of the Crusaders, puts the liberation of Jerusalem at risk by his disappearance. Pagan sorceress Armida, the daughter of king Hidraot of Damascus, is sent to kill the sleeping warrior but instead she falls in love with him. She transfers him to Happy Islands where she creates an enchanted garden with a palace to detain the lovesick prisoner within. Rinaldo forgets his military mission and Christian duty. Gofredo – commander of the crusade – sends out Ubaldo and Carlo, Rinaldo’s comrades, to bring him back. With Rinaldo’s reengagement the Crusaders take Jerusalem. Although pirated editions occurred in Venice before the epic was officially printed, pictorial (as well as musical) renditions are not to be found in the tradition of the Serenissima for almost a century. Lazzarini’s painting was completed in the period after 1683, when Venice attempted to re-animate the Holly League, an alliance that won the battle at Lepant against the Ottomans in 1571. The subject of Rinaldo and Armida episode surfaced first in the music theatre, where it stuck to Tasso’s moral message, while Lazzarini recast it into an explicitly erotic scene. Since Lazzarini’s compositions lend evidence of his familiarity with the Bolognese classicism, the painter must have been aware of the Annibale Carracci painting of 1601. He kept Carracci’s feminisation of the male body by the soft modelling of Rinaldo’s back and by long blond curls. However, his Rinaldo is very agitated in conversation with his mistress in contrast to Carracci’s. While the 20th stanza of Canto XVI, in which Rinaldo holds up a mirror to his mistress, usually offers the basis for the iconographic formation, Lazzarini used the 21st stanza. Armida admires herself in the mirror while Rinaldo tries to convince her that her image in his heart reflected in his eyes is much more beautiful. Lazzarini slid the subject from its moral-didactic hinges and interpreted it in the tradition of Venetian erotic subjects of »loves of gods«. The composition of the male body is based on the figura serpentinata well known from Titian’s paintings of Venus and a musician, but above all from his Venus and Adonis, circa 1553, of the Prado. Lazzarini gave up the nonintersecting gazes emphasized in the epic. The gazes of Rinaldo and Armida converge in the looking glass. Ubaldo’s gaze from behind the rosebush seems directed into the mirror as well. Since the two warriors are the identification figures that tell the viewer how to read the visual narration, they carry the viewer’s gaze. Lazzarini’s amorino is busy with the viewer’s participation, too. Looking at the mirror, he follows Rinaldo’s pointing gesture while pointing at the viewer with his right hand. The painter thematised looking by concentration of gazes directed to the same spot: the looking glass reflects what the viewer sees from his privileged position – the undressed Armida. The visualisation of the erotic scene recreates gazing through a peephole at the nose powdering Venuses of the Venetian high Renaissance. That kind of image was intended for the patron’s most private quarters that privilege very different and particular imperatives not the ideological orthodoxy, brought to life in Venetian painting again in the mid-18th century by Lazzarini’s pupil Giambattista Tiepolo. Author Andrej Smrekar 1 March – 4 April 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Gregorio Lazzarini, attributed, Rinaldo and Armida, (c. 1690), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3057, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, May 2018 The Problems of Restoration-Conservation of Banners and their Presentation »Youngsters enjoy showing off with banners. It is usually those young men that carry them who have been conscripted for military service that year or those who have already completed their service. At some places, the banners from all chapels of ease are brought to the parish for Resurrection Procession.« (Niko Kuret, Praznično leto Slovencev) A church banner is an ecclesiastical flag bearing religious symbols and hanging on a horizontal bar. The canvas is painted with sacred motifs on both sides and is sewn into a bigger piece of colour cloth or brocade, characteristically shaped at the lower edge. The edge is decorated with tassels and hemmed with fringes. The very image can be bordered with a golden band in the manner of a frame. The banner on the horizontal bar is freely suspended on one or more load-bearing poles, depending on its size and weight. Whether carried in a procession or placed inside a church, the banners considerably contributed to the rich atmosphere of a religious holiday, and at many places they were exhibited throughout the year. Several banners have found their home in the holdings of the National Gallery of Slovenia, with some of them being included in its permanent exhibition. As a rule, only the pictorial parts of the objects have been preserved. Since 2009, during preparation works for the exhibition An Outline of Late Baroque Painting in Carniola and for the Gallery’s new permanent exhibition, we, the National Gallery restorers−conservators, have treated three banners and one is still in the process. All of them were already restored in the past, which, however, does not facilitate the work. In spite of the unquestioned quality of the paintings and the importance of the artists, the banners were usually lined onto a secondary canvas (completely or just onto bands) on the side that seemed less interesting or more extensively damaged, and were subsequently treated and framed as conventional pictures. Professional ethics and understanding of a work of art as an entirety require different approaches nowadays as regards both the restoration−conservation process and the presentation of this type of art objects. The examples we present here are works by four Slovenian painters, three from the Baroque period and one from the time of Realism: Fortunat Bergant (1721–1769), Anton Cebej (1722–after 1774), Leopold Layer (1752–1828) and Jurij Šubic (1855–1890). Equally important for the National Gallery of Slovenia as restoration-conservation interventions meeting the latest standards of profession is to come as close as possible, in terms of displaying and in accordance with the space available, to the character and content of the work of art. Trends in exhibiting banners indicate that they should be hung freely, provided the structural firmness allows it. Author Mihael Pirnat Jr. 10 May – 6 June 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Restoration-conservation of banners and their presentation, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2018 Biedermeier Children Portraits The period of Biedermeier demonstrates a special interest in portraying children as unique and specific individuals. Particularly portraits of children began to thrive in secular painting, which was a logical result of the overall flourishing of portraiture that had been triggered off by the bourgeoisie after the French Revolution. Children portraits, like portraits of adults, became a question of social status. It was also the time when the middle-class society was focused on idyllic family life concentrated on children. Among the Slovenian Biedermeier painters it was particularly Matevž Langus (1792–1855) that quickly, skilfully and successfully adapted his work to the demands of his clients. From the 1820s onwards he was one of the most sought-after portraitists of children. Typical of Langus’ portraiture are oil portraits which show a topographically recognizable veduta in the background. Although at first sight it seems that his portrait schemes of children rely to a great extent on the patterns of his adult portraits, his portrayals of the young ones nevertheless have certain specific features in common. As a rule, children are presented in full length, mainly in a seated position. Almost always attributes of childhood are added – toys and different animals in the same role. In contrast to adult portraits, those of children also include emphasized floral symbolism. In terms of formal questions, the central attention is always given to children’s figures which, as a rule, occupy the foreground. This attention is achieved by careful and emphasized plastic modelling of children’s faces and bodies as well as by exact description of details of their clothing and attributes. The landscape backgrounds are always topographically identifiable. However, the detailed and smooth painting manner in children’s figures has no equivalent continuation in the landscape. Even if we allow for the effects of atmospheric perspective, the backgrounds seem too dull and schematized. The landscape image serves as a geographical attribute within the coordinates of the adult world and is reasonably shifted far into the background. The children’s phantasy world is enclosed within palpably painted leaves of grass and a web of gaily coloured flowers of the home garden – the »miraculous« garden – which is the most frequent setting for children’s portraits. The painting Two Children is the epitome of all the stated characteristics. The portrayed children have not been identified yet, but in the background to the left the outline of the Rožnik hill with the church can be recognized, which indicates Ljubljana as the home place of the sitters. The garden architecture behind the children acts as a safe shelter. The small dog in the picture implies children’s play and adds animated genre content to the portrait. Forget-me-nots, which occur as an attribute of unspoiled memories of carefree childhood in all portraits of children in outdoor settings, are also included in the present picture – meaningful are those in the hands of the younger child, being so small that it is only trying to stand on its feet. The memory of helplessness and elementariness of the earliest childhood is also evoked by the nakedness of the young sitters. Roses next to the elder girl were also a compulsory addition, but not only in children’s portraits but also in those of adults, women in particular. The painting is not dated, but according to the shortcomings in anatomy and formal characteristics it can be ranked with Langus’ early works, those that were executed around 1830. Particularly rewarding is comparison with his portrait of an unidentified young lady kept in the museum in Novo mesto. In both pictures the same troubles with proportions and other difficulties of a beginner can be observed, together with formal synchronicity in details, such as the way of painting the roses or the ornaments on fabrics. The two canvases are also almost identical in size. However, only further investigations on the basis of the stated indications can possibly disclose content- and client-related connections between the two portraits and lead to reliable identification of the sitters. Author Kristina Preininger Translation Alenka Klemenc 7 June – 5 September 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matevž Langus, Two Children, (c. 1830), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 194, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Anton Rudež, 1833, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1367, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Karl Hummel Jr., 1848, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3067, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Ludvik in Amalija Crobath, 1837, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 190, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Luiza in Evgen Crobath, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1333, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Portrait of an Unidentified Young Lady, (c. 1830), private collection, (photo © Dolenjski muzej Novo mesto) Revelations, September 2018 Portrait of Baron Josef Anton Codelli: Conservation-Restoration Dilemmas Among the Baroque painters of Ljubljana, Fortunat Bergant (1721–1769) is regarded as an excellent portraitist, yet some questions arise as to his painting invention. It is mainly the matter of »dichotomy« between his refined and relaxed Rococo portraits and his religious pieces which abound in passion, pathos and expressions of blissful ecstasy and are permeated with folk colourfulness. Bergant’s portraits are elaborated in great detail and excel in elegant gestures, whereas in his contemporary religious motifs he is naturalistically eloquent and the gestures are often highly expressive. The image of the Ljubljana townsman Baron Josef Codelli (1718–1795) is certainly the best of Bergant’s portraits. The removal of the overpainting, dating from the second half of the 19th century, has revealed the painter’s characteristics. In the first place they are manifested in the typically Bergant’s manner of simplification of the setting into which he placed a figure of a scene (e.g. the Way of the Cross stations in the basilica at Stična). In this oval portrait too the sitter is awkwardly, or even illogically, placed into a hardly suggested landscape and not into a drawing-room milieu which the relaxed posture of Codelli’s figure, clad in a fur-lined fitted dressing gown, would indicate. Even the composition is somewhat peculiar, since the asymmetrical placement of the baron’s posture and the elevation behind him asymmetrically shifts the weight of the scene to the left. It must have been this disharmony and not perhaps a poor condition of the canvas that encouraged the 19th century restorer to overpaint the background with drapery, add the family coat of arms and turn the natural support on which the affably-looking baron »logically« leans into the corner of some furniture. The fact that Pavel Künl (1817–1871) meticulously overpainted everything except the very figure, thus placing the sitter into a drawing-room atmosphere, clearly shows what troubled the following generations. A counterpart to this piece, also of the same format, is the portrait of Codelli’s wife, Baroness Elisabeth Codelli, née Königsbrunn; it was formerly attributed to Bergant but is a work of a less skilled hand. The oval canvas by Bergant, featuring the portrait of Baron Codelli, held a prominent place in the permanent exhibition of the National Gallery of Slovenia not so long ago. However, the undoubtedly masterly painted bourgeois portrait had been concealing a story that was only unveiled by the recent conservation-restoration intervention, when the true image of the painting came to light. Namely, the portrait had been considerably reworked in the 19th century. The painter-restorer had »altered« it in a way that had greatly changed its compositional as well as colour effect. In 2006, the Gallery’s conservation-restoration department received the painting for treatment. A detailed optical examination revealed that the background behind the figure was completely overpainted. Under the supervision of an expert commission the painting was probed at several points. On the grounds of further optical and material examination the commission decided that the overpainting should be removed. The alteration was done to the portrait relatively soon after its execution and hence firmly stuck to the original layer of paint. However, it proved possible to remove the stubborn oil overpainting, provided it be done extremely cautiously. After a long process of removing the overpainted layers the original image of the portrait has been recovered; however, the painting now makes an impression of being unfinished. The background appears to be an exterior but only cursorily indicated – as if the painter had been losing the battle with the painting? Might this have been the reason of the subsequent »completion«? The interim version was by all means so different and misleading that it had to be rejected and the overpainting removed. The work of art has now been »exposed« to us and it is just before the end of the conservation-restoration treatment. Showing its original image again, the portrait is, in spite of its apparent non finito and incompleteness, more genuine and really by Bergant’s hand alone. It is up to the viewers to decide for themselves whether the painter finished his composition or stopped before the end. Authors Andrej Hirci, Ferdinand Šerbelj 6 September – 3 October 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Overpainting state, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Comparison of the phases of removal of overpainting, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Comparison of VIS and UVF photos while removing overpainting, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) After removal of the overpainting and filling of damages, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Signature on the back of painting, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Comparison before and after removal of overpainting, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Detail of face showing cracks and damages, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, November 2018 They were Gorizians: the Great War and the Šantel Family of Artists In the recent few years the National Gallery of Slovenia has been intensely organizing and digitizing its special collections of personal archives of artists and their fellows. This collection also includes a voluminous correspondence of the Šantel family, which, however, is only part of the family archive, since the other part is privately owned. The above-mentioned material also contains a war diary written in the ethnically mixed city of Gorizia in German shorthand by Avgusta Šantel Sr (1852–1935). The entries date from 23 May to 16 June, 1915, when, due to incessant Italian attacks, the family decided to leave their beloved home city. They put off the departure from day to day, waiting for Avgusta the Younger(1876–1968) to join them from Pola, where she was employed as a teacher at the Imperial and Royal War Navy. They wanted to leave Gorizia in a body. After 25 June, the following members of the family left the »Austrian Nice«, as Gorizia was popularly called at that time: the 63-year-old mother, Avgusta the Elder (descended from impoverished Austrian nobility, a painter, relative of the Gorizian Biedermeier painter Jožef Tominc), the 70-year-old father, Anton (a patriotic Slovene of peasant origin, retired grammar-school teacher of mathematics and physics, music lover), and the daughters – the 41-year-old Henrika (a painter), the 39-year-old Avgusta the Younger (a drawing and music teacher, painter, violinist) and the 28-year-old sickly Danica (a needlework teacher, gifted for painting and music). On leaving, the Šantels were convinced they would be back by October. They left the care for all their Gorizian property to their maid and the acquaintance Eva Mlekuž as well as the care for Mother’s relative Marjeta Domide, née Jesenko who was unable to set out on the way because of ill health. The first station on their refugee wandering was in Ljubljana. The Šantels stayed in the city for eight days, after which they went on to Dolenjske Toplice where a suitable dwelling awaited them. Ample evidence of how the Šantel family experienced their refugee situation is provided by the correspondence exchanged during the war between the family members and their close relatives or friends and acquaintances. The Šantel parents and sisters frequently corresponded with Saša (1883‒1945), their son and brother respectively, whom Mother called Alexander. He lived with his family in Istria (Pazin, Sušak) and had artistic talents too ‒ he was a painter and illustrator, violist, composer, choirmaster, and also stage and costume designer. In his letters the son often advised Mother how to act and decide in difficult situations they had to face; among other things he also warned against leaving their paintings in Gorizia but rather to get them out of frames and take them along in rolls. After four months the refugee family Šantel left Dolenjske Toplice and moved to Vienna on account of Danica’s illness. Mother’s sister Henrietta, the widow of the famous physicist Dr. Ludwig Boltzmann (PhD student of Josef Stefan, the Slovenian professor at the University of Vienna), was living in the capital and saw to it that the niece was received at the sanatorium for pulmonary diseases at Alland already on the 2nd of November. Since Danica’s treatment dragged on and the distance of the health resort from Vienna was a logistical problem, the Šantels moved to a rented house in nearby Groisbach in the first weeks of 1916. Although Danica was given several therapies at Alland, they did not cure her and after a few months she was discharged from the sanatorium. Meanwhile, military authorities summoned Avgusta the Younger to come and teach in a refugee camp; she chose Steinklamm near Rabenstein, where the refugees were mainly locals of the Littoral and Istria. The Šantel family saw no reason why they should continue at Groisbach. So they decided to return to the Slovenian territory. They bought a villa with orchard near Krško and moved there before the end of March 1917. They finally had a home of their own again, on their own land. The peaceful milieu suited them well: Father Anton devoted himself to fruit growing; they were again close to their acquaintances – the refugees from Gorizia; the daughters resumed painting; and also Saša with his family was closer by. However, they did not enjoy the Krško villa long: on the 23rd of February, 1918, it burnt down and they were homeless once again. At the end of the Great War, the Šantels were living in Krško as tenants. In April 1920 Father Anton (born 1845) died, in May 1921 Danica (born 1885) died too. Henrika (1874‒1940) and Mother then left Krško and joined Avgusta the Younger, who was a teacher at a secondary school in Maribor. After the war, also Saša left Istria and moved with his family to Ljubljana in 1920. At the State Crafts School he took up the post of a teacher of decorative drawing and graphic arts. On his persuasion, the Maribor part of the family also moved to Ljubljana in the early 1930s, after Augusta the Younger had retired. Mother and the two daughters bought a villa with a garden in Verstovškova (today’s Teslova) street. Their new home finally enabled them to live a calm family life for which the Šantels had longed fifteen years. The former Gorizians never returned to their beloved city, which had been destroyed during the war and, according to the Treaty of Rapallo, belonged to Italy afterwards. Author Mojca Jenko Translation Alenka Klemenc 8 November – 5 December 2018 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Avgusta Šantel Sr., Anton Šantel, 1873, Slovene Ethnographic Museum, EM 18942, (photo Carlo Sclauzero, © Slovene Ethnographic Museum) Henrika Šantel, Avgusta Sr. Šantel, (1917/1918), Slovene Ethnographic Museum, EM 18949, (photo Carlo Sclauzero, © Slovene Ethnographic Museum) Henrika Šantel, Self-portrait, 1914, Slovene Ethnographic Museum, EM 18940, (photo Carlo Sclauzero, © Slovene Ethnographic Museum) Henrika Šantel, Sisters Avgusta and Danica with Female Pup Misili, 1906, Slovene Ethnographic Museum, EM 18673, (photo Carlo Sclauzero, © Slovene Ethnographic Museum) Saša Šantel, Self-portrait, 1936, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 384, (photo Bojan Salaj, © Narodna galerija) War diary, Avgusta Šantel Sr., notebook, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 611 Revelations, January 2019 Ivana Kobilca: Mira Pintar and Young Women in White »Auntie painted me, that’s why we’re running late a bit late,« explained Mira Pintar (1891–1980) to her mother Marija in a letter from Berlin of summer 1913, where she vacationed for weeks with Marija’s sister Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926). The visit by the young relative was crucial for the painter, who after years of health problems again began to paint more ambitiously and started to think about exhibiting. The portrait of Mira Pintar reflects moderate middle-class modernism that defined Kobilca’s oeuvre since the late 1880s, when she lived in Munich. Already then the motif of young women in white was common in the Bavarian capital. Symbolist mythological, religious, historical and fairy-tale scenes of dreamy girls, often depicted (semi)nude, shared their iconography with Realist bourgeois portraiture: the white dress was a symbol of the pure, the eternal and the innocent, while the woman’s self-confident gaze, youth and beauty stood for the sexualized corporality. The conflict between the female flesh and the female ideal attracted (male) writers and visual artists for millennia. Vestal Virgins, the caretakers of the central hearth in Rome and the guardians of Roman welfare, wore a white stola like Roman matrons, while their hairdo was arranged in a wedding-day style. Also Mary, Mother of Jesus, and other Christian female saints were depicted in white and bright garments when they stood for the fiancée from the Song of Solomon, where her betrothed uses almost erotic similes to describe her; among others, he equates her with a lily among the thorns (SoS 2:2). But the beauty of a young female could also bring trouble. Hesiodus thus describes Pandora, the first woman: »For the renowned Lame One moulded from Gaia a likeness / of majestic maiden through the plans of Kronides. / Goddess grey-eyed Athena girded and dressed her / in a silvery white garment. Down from her head, she drew / with her hands a veil skilfully wrought, a wonder to behold. […] For from her is the descent of female women / for the race and tribes of women are destructive, / a great pain for mortals, living with men […]« (Hesiod, The Theogony, 571–575 and 590–592). Kobilca draped in white both anonymous models (A Dutchwoman, Parisian Woman with a Letter – maybe German painter Maria Slavona) and patrons from bourgeois families (Baumgartner, Souvan, Bussjäger, Arndt, Šlajmer, Povše). She mostly employed pastel for these works that reflect contemporary fashion style. The refinement, relaxed brushstroke and Secession style of Mira Pintar render it superior to all other Kobilca’s pictures of this genre. The portrait firmly places Kobilca besides her Slovenian colleagues (Ivan Vavpotič, Rihard Jakopič, Matej Sternen, among others) and her European role models, especially Wilhelm Leibl (1844–1900) and Albert Weisgerber (1878–1915); theirs and other similar works were exhibited at the Berlin Secession and the art gallery of Paul Cassirer that Kobilca frequented. Author Michel Mohor 3 January – 10 February 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivana Kobilca, Mira Pintar, (1913), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3318, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Wilhelm Leibl, Rosine Fischler, Countess of Treuberg, 1878, Hamburger Kunsthalle, (photo wikiart.org) Albert Weisgerber, Margarete Weisgerber, 1911, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken, (photo Raphael Maaß, www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de) Revelations, February 2019 Reliquary of Saint Pope and the Decorative Technique of Applied Brocade At the end of the Middle Ages, a decorative technique of applied brocade (ger. Pressbrokat) was developed. Low reliefs were typically made by pressing different materials into finely carved molds through a tin foil. Painted or gilded, they were then attached to the wooden surface of paintings or sculptures. Reliefs imitated the brocade fabrics. The technique was popular in most of Europe for about a hundred years, until the middle of the sixteenth century. The technique was replaced by other techniques of fabric imitation, such as sgraffito, where the pattern was scraped out of paint applied to the gilt. Aging caused typical, frequent and extensive damages to reliefs. Layers separated, detached and fell off the support. A variety of component materials respond to environmental changes differently. Their binding properties change over time. Due to the lack of knowledge of this extremely rare technique in Slovenian patrimony, inadequate treatment of such surfaces also occurred. Knowing the materials and creative techniques can help to determine the time and place or even the authorship of artworks. This knowledge is also extremely important in the conservation-restoration treatment. It is crucial to determine the material composition, state of preservation, type and causes of damages prior to the intervention. Through these findings we determine the working plan, what is possible and what is right to do. The wooden sculpture of a young pope in the National Gallery of Slovenia’s collection is painted while the papal tiara and the cope are gilded. His gown is made in applied brocade. The tin foil was originally painted to imitate gold. Originally a relic box was located in the middle of the chest. The selection of component materials shows the influence from the German territory and the pomegranate pattern is influenced by the North Italian workshops. The reasons for the conservation-restoration treatment were structural and aesthetic. The most damaged area was the applied brocade, where only about a third was preserved. Later layers have changed the relief pattern further. The gilded cope and tiara and the painted parts are well preserved. The very darkened surface was visually disturbing and aesthetically unacceptable. The key goal of the conservation-restoration treatment was to prevent further damage and to render possible the displaying of the statue. There were several attempts to save the applied brocade and different materials wereapplied to it in the past. The recent treatment of this area was therefore limited to fixing/consolidating remnants of the relief. Surface cleaning and the removal darkened schellack layer from other parts were successful. Minimal retouching completed the treatment. The applied brocade most likely originally represented the main decorative element of the sculpture. For better understanding of the artwork we present a drawing of the remains of the relief pattern and an attempt to partially reconstruct the pomegranate pattern, which was done according to similar examples. Graphic reconstruction may not be able to satisfy fully the presentation of the three-dimensional technique, therefore further possibilities are offered by digital technology. The conservation-restoration treatment with accompanying documentation was carried out at the Conservation and Restoration Department of the National Gallery within the framework of the diploma work of the student of restoration Erica Sartori. Her thesis with an in-depth study of the technique was rewarded with Prešeren Prize for UL ALUO students for the academic year 2017/2018. Authors Martina Vuga, Erica Sartori Translation Alenka Klemenc 7 February – 6 March 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Anonymous, Reliquary of Saint Pope, (c. 1480?), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 34, The condition of the artwork before conservation-restoration intervention, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) The condition of the artwork after the conservation-restoration intervention, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Detail of the garment made using the technique known as Pressbrokat, a decorative technique of embossed tin reliefs. Originally, a slightly tinted varnish on the tin foil achieved the effect of gold, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia). An attempt at a partial reconstruction of the pomegranate pattern, created with the help of similar examples, such as the polyptych from Aquileia, (photo Nicoletta Buttazzoni, Il restauro del Polittico di Pellegrino da San Daniele dalla basilica di Aquileia, in: L’arte nel legno in Italia. Esperienze e indagini a confronto, Perugia 2005) Polyptych from Aquileia, (photo (foto Nicoletta Buttazzoni, Il restauro del Polittico di Pellegrino da San Daniele dalla basilica di Aquileia, in: L’arte nel legno in Italia. Esperienze e indagini a confronto, Perugia 2005) Revelations, March 2019 Boris Kalin, Zorka Košenina Boris Kalin (1905–1975) was an important representative of realistic monument sculpture after the Second World War. He is actually one of the most prominent sculptors to have carried out great post-war state commissions, thanks to his perfect mastery of sculpting technique and the idealized realism of his style. His voluminous, soft and rounded figures were executed in the tradition of realistic academism under the influence of classical masters. After finishing the Applied Arts School in Ljubljana, where sculpture was taught by Alojzij Repič (1866–1941), he continued his education in Zagreb, completing the study at the academy in Ivan Meštrović’s (1883–1962) master class. Apart from Boris Kalin, also Frančišek Smerdu (1908–1964) and France Gorše (1897–1986) were among the Slovenian students who adopted the suggestive character of the Meštrović school. The art academy in Zagreb, where the majority of the third generation of Slovenian sculptors studied, paid a lot of attention particularly to the working of stone. Boris Kalin also worked in bronze, mainly male figures, but he was primarily the master of stone, thoughtfully subordinating the structure and colour of the piece he was handling to the subject matter. He acquired precious experience of working marble in the stonecutter Kunovar’s workshop in Ljubljana, but in the first place he learned from his professor in Zagreb, Frano Kršinić (1897–1982). After the Second World War he was appointed professor of sculpture at the art academy in Ljubljana, founded in 1945, and remained there until his retirement in 1970. Together with Frančišek Smerdu, Karel Putrih (1910–1959) and his younger brother Zdenko Kalin (1911–1990), he earned the leading place for the first Slovenian school of sculpture, and because of the clients’ demands for monument sculpture he merged his own stylistic idiom with the aesthetics of Socialist Realism. The sculptors who later became the first professors at the academy in Ljubljana joined the art group Neodvisni (The Independents), founded in 1937, whose expression in sculpture displayed plastically simplified forms, leaving out the details, realistic body masses with correct proportions, and adoption of contemporary French innovations. In terms of style, they directed their students to realistic sculpture, because stylistic tradition was acknowledged in the striving for a new, revolutionary content. In addition, Boris Kalin particularly taught his students the skill of handling the material. Apart from others, the following ones were also among his students: Jakob Savinšek, Stojan Batič, Ivan Štrekelj, Tone Lapajne, Janez Lenassi, Drago Tršar and Milan Vojsk, whose works are also kept in the holdings of the National Gallery of Slovenia. From 1953 onwards, Boris Kalin was full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences, and Arts, and as many as three times he received the Prešeren Prize for his sculptural achievements. In 2017, the National Gallery received a donation of the marble sepulchral portrait of Zorka Košenina with a child in her arms from the cemetery at Vič in Ljubljana, as well as a plaster draft of the head. The sculptor received the commission from Slavko Košenina, Zorka’s widower. Presumably the portrait was done after a photograph. Zorka Košenina, née Rakoš (1909−1943), died at the age of thirty-four, shortly after giving birth to a son, Slavko Košenina the Younger (1943−2003). The two donated works share grace, transparent fragility, spiritualization, timelessness, and inner concentration. The classically depicted mother holds her little child in her right arm, and the baby got hold of her forefinger with its right hand, while in its left hand it holds a flower. The two figures, interconnected by a rhythmically spread linear draping, resemble Christian depictions of Mary with Christ Child. The sepulchral sculpture, executed in the second half of 1943 (i.e. during the war), is characterized by a realistic expression which Kalin later included in his public monuments, dedicated to the memory of war heroes. Author Mateja Breščak Translation Alenka Klemenc 7 March – 3 April 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Boris Kalin, Zorka Košenina, 1943, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 1086, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Boris Kalin, Zorka Košenina, 1943, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 1085, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2019 New Acquisition: Gvidon Birolla, Eagle’s Nest Painter and illustrator Gvidon Birolla (1881–1963) was a representative of Slovenian Art Nouveau (Secession). Between 1901 and 1906 he studied art in Vienna: he first attended the K. K. Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, but after a year he enrolled in the Akademie der bildende Künste. He studied under Professor Christian Griepenkerl (1836−1916), who taught history painting. Under the same professor the famous Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890−1918) studied from the autumn of 1906 onwards; of Slovenian artists Jurij Šubic (1855‒1895) and Ivan Žabota (1877−1939) were also among his students. Apart from studying while he was in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Birolla also dedicated his efforts to national awakening activities and creative work: he was a co-founder of the Vesna art club, a joint society of Slovenian and Croatian secondary-school and university students (it operated from 1902 on, but was formally founded on 9 May 1903). Serving as the first president of the society was painter Saša Šantel (1883−1945), and besides Birolla the following artists were among the most outstanding Slovenian memebers: painters Hinko Smrekar (1883−1942), Maksim Gaspari (1883−1980) and Fran Tratnik (1881−1957), and sculptors Svetoslav Peruzzi (1881−1936) and somewhat older Franc Berneker (1874−1932). Mentioned among the Croats should be sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883−1962) and painters Tomislav Krizman (1882−1955) and Mirko Rački (1879−1982). The members followed the then fashionable Secession movement (Austrian Art Nouveau) and their slogan read From the people – for the people. In terms of expression, the Vesna members were realists: characteristic of their visual language are linear drawing and explicit flat planes, whereas in terms of subject matter they systematically drew on folk material. In their depictions of Slovenian landscape and the local man within it, the Slovenian members of the club successfully conveyed also the Slovenian folk psyche. The Vesna members were susceptible to the ideals which underlined artistic freedom and fin-de-siècle motifs. – Among the tasks taken on by the Vesna art society was organization of art exhibitions too. Because of the short functioning of the club (it formally operated only until 1906), they failed to organize an exhibition of their own; they only presented themselves as a group under the common name of Vesna at the 1st Yugoslav Art Exhibition in Belgrade in 1904. They were favourably accepted by the critics, and the sale was a success also for the 23-year-old Birolla: of his four exhibited pieces he sold three, one of these – Church on the Hill – to King Peter I Karađorđević. After finishing his studies, Gvidon Birolla returned home and was active as artist in Škofja Loka and its surroundings. The motif of the Eagle’ Nest, acquired by the National Gallery of Slovenia in 2018, was also taken from the Škofja Loka Hills. The painter signed his work but did not date it. It is possible to infer from the artist’s life story and creative career that he painted it around 1910, when, due to unexpected circumstances, he had to take over the management of the family business and had less and less time for painting. After 1917 he wilfully gave up art activities for slightly more than twenty years. Shortly before the Second World War he resumed painting practice and won recognition particularly as a successful and much liked illustrator, while he repeated on his canvases mainly variations of the themes that had artistically attracted him during his first creative period. Works of art by Gvidon Birolla are imbued with Secessionist comprehension and inspired by folk motifs and village originals. They are characteristic for pure lines, limited colour planes, suffocated colouring and quite often the choice of unusual viewing point. His specific style, pervaded by homeliness and fairy-tale atmosphere, is easily recognizable. Author Mojca Jenko Translation Alenka Klemenc 13 June – 4 September 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Gvidon Birolla, Eagle’s Nest, (c. 1910), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3687, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Avgust Berthold, Gvidon Birolla, private collection Revelations, October 2019 Mihael Stroj, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Copy after August Riedel, 1858 The biblical heroine Judith is a beautiful and pious widow who, for the love of God and her people, makes a stand against the conquerors. Her story is written in the Book of Judith of the Old Testament. Because her people decided to surrender to the enemy, an idea for trickery came to her how to gain access, together with her servant woman, to the enemy camp and to the army’s commander, Holofernes, himself. When on the fourth day after supper, where she was his guest, Holofernes lay in drunken stupor, she cut off his head. Then she and her companion successfully stole away from the camp and took the enemy’s head to the native town, where all the people gathered and praised God for having saved them through the agency of heroic Judith. Thanks to its religious, heroic as well as erotic elements, the story of Judith met with wide response in literature, fine arts and music. Painting and sculptural presentations were particularly frequent in Renaissance and Baroque art. Judith was usually presented as a cephalophore, carrying or showing Holofernes’ head. In 1858, Mihael Stroj (1803−1871) copied in smaller size the painting Judith with the Head of Holofernes by the German painter August Riedel (1799−1883). The latter executed this highly influential work in 1840, and it is now kept in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. It was first exhibited in this very city, and the following year Ludwig I of Bavaria acquired it for his collection. The Riedel’s painting depicts the knee-length, life-size biblical heroine in a three-quarter turn before a neutral, illuminated background. Her left hand firmly rests on the sword before her, while she almost hides Holofernes’ head behind her rich drapery. Only some hair and part of the forehead are visible of the head. She wears a white blouse with very wide sleeves which slid from her right shoulder. Her hips and waist are clad in precious golden-red brocade. A band with a precious stone adorns her chest. A wave of bright light from the right pours over the figure. The artistic surplus of Riedel’s painting lies in the indicated duality between the exposed material splendour in the foreground and the brilliance of the illuminated background. In between the smooth material tangible world and the spiritualized all-pervading light the body of Judith is placed, resolute and sensual at the same time. Her facial expression reveals complete dedication, humility and self-awareness. Riedel’s Judith is not a dancingly triumphant figure (like Michelangelo’s in the Sistine Chapel) or a bloodthirsty avenger (like Artemisia Gentileschi’s), she is just a devoted doer of God’s will. By means of subtle psychological characterization of the face and refined light emphases, Riedel managed to disclose a fully personal attitude of the heroine to God, her people and, last but not least, the decapitated man. Riedel’s depiction of Judith is in accordance with the then topical literary, more complex image of the heroine, such as was presented in 1840 by Christian Friedrich Hebbel (1813‒1863). In his play Judith the author imposes tragic guilt on the protagonist because of her love for Holofernes. Riedel’s painting achieved immediate success and it became widely popular particularly after 1847 thanks to a lithograph by Ferdinand von Piloty (1828‒1895). The reproductive print gave rise to numerous copies in oil, on glass and even on porcelain. It is true that the composition of Stroj’s copy follows the original, nevertheless Stroj completely altered the face to suit his female ideal. Also the colours of details, anatomical slips and emphatically plastic modelling of the incarnate with grey tones give the copy a completely different final expression. Judith’s body appears stiff, the face is defiantly numb. The details of brocade pattern are lost, so that golden-yellow surfaces prevail; also the gentle translucency of the white blouse is lost. But in the first place, missing in Stroj’s copy are the full-blooded sensuality, softness of expression and psychological interpretation which became so characteristic in 19th century art. Stroj copied Riedel’s painting in his mature period when in his middle-class portraits a shift from idealization towards a more realistic approach can be traced. He possibly saw the original by Riedel because it can be surmised from the surviving documents that also after his study period he wanted to travel to Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia. With regard to the date of his work, it is likely that Stroj copied Riedel’s painting on commission, and in accordance with the client’s preference he changed Judith’s face. Regretfully, no tangible information is available as to the provenance of the painting. In view of the national-identifying iconography of the story of Judith, Stroj’s strong connections with the Illyrian circles in Zagreb should not be overlooked. It seems that the motif of Judith with the head of Holofernes attracted Stroj already during his study years in Vienna, between 1821 and 1825. At that time he copied in the former Imperial Gallery at Belvedere the painting of the same subject matter by Alessandro Varotari, called Il Padovanino (1588−1648). Namely, already at the end of 1823 Stroj received a certificate which confirmed his abilities as a copyist. The certificate says »that for five quarters of a year Mihael Stroj has diligently and with all the necessary artistic dexterity made copies, he was moral and dedicated and performed well in the field of history subject matter, thus gaining all the recognition as a proficient copyist.« Author Kristina Preininger Translation Alenka Klemenc 3 October – 6 November 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Mihael Stroj, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1858, copy after August Riedel, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S3387, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) August Riedel, Judith, 1840, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, WAF 826, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Mihael Stroj, copy after Alessandro Varotari, called Il Padovanino, Judith, (c. 1823), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 353, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Alessandro Varotari, called Il Padovanino, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, (before 1636), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Revelations, November 2019 Restoration of the Painting The Sower by Ivan Grohar – Adaptation of a Deformed Stretcher Frame This year, the National Gallery of Slovenia enriched the spring in Prague with a large-scale and quality exhibition of Slovenian art entitled Impressionism from Dawn till Dusk. It was opened from May through September 2019 at Prague Castle. During the preparatory phase we, the restorers, examined about five hundred works of art, some of which were subsequently conserved and restored. Among other pieces also The Sower, a painting by Ivan Grohar (1867–1911), was restored. The oil paint was applied to the canvas in several thick layers and was cracked all over the surface. Additional trouble occurred because of the fact that beneath the motif of The Sower there was an older motif of a landscape, later overpainted; the interval between the execution of the one and the other image can have a negative effect on the two paint layers stuck together. When we first examined the painting, we decided on the consolidation of the paint layer, which, however, on a more exact examination proved a rather minor problem. The rich and strong decorative frame effectively concealed the structurally deformed stretcher frame which carries the canvas of the painting. The bars and wood in the corners of the flexible stretcher frame were so crooked that they caused creases on the carrier, i.e. the canvas, and cracking and peeling of the paint layer. We decided to preserve the original stretcher frame, which is not always the practice in such a case. Taking account of the chosen wood (core) and the very execution, I believe that the stretcher frame was not made by a professional carpenter or a master with good knowledge of the nature of wood – I presume it was made by the painter himself. It is known that Ivan Grohar lived in poverty almost throughout his life, yet he nevertheless painted and exhibited extensively all the time. In view of his living conditions and his manual dexterity it is quite plausible that many a stretcher frame of his earlier canvases is his own work. Caution is therefore not unnecessary. We reinforced and regulated the edges of the stretcher by means of wooden slats. Locally gluing cracks and fallen-off fragments and replacing missing wood help to enhance the bearing strength and solidity of the auxiliary carrier. We straightened the creased canvas, consolidated the paint layer and retouched the damaged areas of the paint. It is reasonable to hope that the work of art, treated like that, can better stand the test of time and the trials to which it is doomed due to its fame. Author Mihael Pirnat Jr. Translation Alenka Klemenc 7 November – 4 December 2019 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivan Grohar, The Sower, (1908), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1327, painting before the restoration procedure and the restoration sketch, (drawing by Mihael Pirnat Jr.) Revelations, December 2019 The Nativity Scene by Jože Plečnik for the Shop Lectarija in Ljubljana The Feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ – Christmas – was the starting point and inspiration for the development of folk culture with a multitude of customs and habits as well as artistic creations in the fields of literature, fine arts and music. The most characteristic and the most indispensable of all the achievements seems to be exactly the seasonal display of the static nativity scene, which has become a symbol of the Christmas season and a religious, cultural, ethnological and artistic phenomenon. It has not been a very old custom because initially it was only artists who depicted the Christmas story in churches. Only later the habit of displaying model figurines developed, in the way of »frozen theatre«, as it was called by ethnologist Niko Kuret, the greatest Slovenian expert on the history of the nativity scene and the man who followed the making and displaying of the nativity scene throughout his life. The first static nativity scene was arranged in the Slovenian lands in the 17th century by the Jesuits in the Church of St James, Ljubljana. Gradually, the habit spread throughout the churches, but it was only at the turn of the 18th into the 19th century that it also spread to private homes, at first only in towns and later also in the countryside. The characteristic iconographic unit of the nativity scene consists of the Holy Family group in a stable or cave, with the ass and ox, shepherds with sheep, the Magi, angels and the star. In addition to a variety of serially produced nativity scenes, lots of which belong to kitsch, also quality original figurines were made by folk artisans and artists who in the 20th century also contributed several authorial interpretations of the nativity scene. Among the latter, architect Jože Plečnik’s nativity scene certainly stands out; he designed it for the Lectarija shop which used to be situated at Kongresni trg in Ljubljana. The Lectarija was a shop that offered gingerbread baker’s and candlemaker’s goods as well as products of handicraft and applied arts. It was owned by Henrieta and Robert Freyer and the overall interior design was made to the plans of architect Jože Plečnik (1872–1957). They included a big brass spiral with holders for products in the shop-window, glazed wooden cabinets, a central stone table with scales and a chandelier over it and a brass candlestick. The Lectarija was opened in 1939 and, thanks to its unique interior, the newspapers immediately declared it the most beautiful shop on the Balkans. After the Second World War it was nationalized and incorporated in the Dom firm, but products of handicraft and applied arts continued to be sold in it. After Slovenia had gained independence and the Dom firm had been privatized, the sales offer turned banal, and the overall character of Plečnik’s interior was in danger. Hence, after the denationalization, the heirs, Agata Freyer Majaron and Rok Freyer, decided to donate Plečnik’s furnishings of the Lectarija to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum where it is presented as a museum exhibit in the function of a museum shop. Plečnik not only contributed interior design for the Lectarija shop, but at the request of the owners – he was specifically associated with Henrieta Freyer – he also devised tiny decorative objects: nativity scenes, Christmas trees, chandeliers, holders for Easter eggs, paperweights, decorative stoppers, caskets, money boxes, mirrors, and other objects made of wood, brass and wrought iron. Within a decade, more than a hundred plans of this kind were created according to the architect’s ideas and were manufactured in small batches by his associates – masters of applied arts. Of particular interest seem to be symbolic nativity scenes which Plečnik devised in three variants, all of them consisting of a wooden stable in which a figurine of Christ Child was laid. The bigger nativity scene is conceived architecturally as a Christmas temple, so that in spite of its small size the effect is monumental; it was made as a single sample, for the Freyer family only. Two smaller variants of the nativity scene were devised as a stylized stable and were available for sale in the Lectarija. Plečnik laid the figurine of little Jesus in a nut shell and placed it on a bobbin-lace napkin; he also added chandeliers and holders for tiny candles to illuminate the nativity scene. Besides, he also designed individual chandeliers, two of which are in the form of a Christmas tree and one in the form of a semi-circular pedestal, differently carved and with a brass ornament with the Christmas star. Plečnik is well known for his great town-planning and architectural projects but less known for his tiny decorative items which – although on a small scale – are great achievements. His family nativity scenes are products of modern design which through the addition of candlesticks attractively combine the habit of arranging the static nativity scene and the habit of a more recent date: the Christmas tree. By means of artworks by Plečnik from the heritage of the Freyer family and from churches, screenwriter and director Edi Majaron visualized the broadcast Plečnik’s candelsticks … Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, which was produced by TV Slovenia to the recordings of Christmas carols performed by the choir Consortium Musicum in 1990. Author Andrej Doblehar Translation Alenka Klemenc 5 December 2019 – 28 January 2020 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Jožef Plečnik, The Nativity Scene, owner Agata Freyer Majaron, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, January 2020 Luca Giordano, Prometheus Bound (c. 1666) Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, a Titan, and an Oceanid called Clymene. His name in Greek means »forethought«. His deeds were in opposition to the supreme god, Zeus, who planned to exterminate men and make place for a new race that would be a more obedient instrument to his rule. Prometheus, however, helped men living in misery and ignorance. He instructed them in various skills and arts and showed them how to use metals and fire. Because of his defiance, Zeus withdrew fire from the people, but Prometheus stole a spark in heaven and brought it back to mankind in a stem of anise. Because of this offence, Zeus ordered Prometheus chained to a desolate rock in the Caucasus. An eagle came to him every day at the same hour and pecked out his liver, which then regenerated. The lyricism and moral depth of the Prometheus’ myth have spread across centuries, revealing its relevance to generation after generation. The idea of the revolutionary and indomitable warrior, the champion of mankind who stands resolute and suffers greatly because of it, inspired poets, artists and philosophers. During the Middle Ages, he was equated with Christ, who also suffered to deliver mankind from doom. Myths relate that the Prometheus owned the first-ever ring, made from his chains and a piece of rock from the Caucasus to which he was bound. After the fall of the Bastille (1789) during the French Revolution, the rebels emulated him by wearing rings with stones from the ramparts of the fortress, as symbols of resistance to the powerful and of radical social changes.According to one version of the story, Prometheus modelled humankind out of clay with the help of the goddess Athena, providing an example for artists, who also create their protagonists. The image of Prometheus the artist intertwined with the image of Prometheus the rebel, who despises and deposes old gods, and became a constant in art, especially in poetry. Goethe, Byron, Shelley interpreted the myth, as did France Prešeren in his poem To the Poet (1838): »Who may / Rout the vulture that seizes the heart for his prey / From dawn unto darkness, from darkness till day!« Luca Giordano (1634‒1705) was one of the leading Neapolitan painters of the late 17th century, who worked in several Italian cities (Naples, Rome, Padua, Venice). The Spanish King Charles II invited him to Madrid, where he essentially contributed to the development of Spanish Baroque painting. His work is stylistically diverse, ranging from imitations of the Renaissance masters to the influences of Jusepe de Ribera (1591‒1652), Caravaggio (1571‒1610), Annibale Carracci (1560‒1609), Pietro da Cortona (1596‒1669) and the Venetian masters of the 16th century. Like them, Prometheus Bound showcases drama, pathos and strong contrasts between light and shadow. Also crucial was a painting of the same motif that originates from the circle of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Author Alenka Simončič Translation Michel Mohor 9 January – 5 February 2020 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Luca Giordano, Prometheus Bound, (c. 1666), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2017, (photo Bojan Salaj, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, February 2020 New Acquisition of the National Gallery of Slovenia – a Present from the Narodni Dom Sports Association: Ivan Vavpotič, Poster for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914 Early in January 2019, the Narodni dom Sports Association presented the National Gallery of Slovenia with a poster inviting to the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana from 15 to 17 August 1914. The event was meant to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Slovenian Sokol Union. The majestic poster executed in the technique of colour lithograph was designed by Ivan Vavpotič, whose signature can well be seen in the bottom left-hand corner. The poster was printed in the Blasnik Printing House in Ljubljana. ‒ In addition to the poster, Vavpotič also designed other items of promotional material for the occasion, among them also a series of postcards whose motifs are related to the virtues of the Sokol movement members (fraternity, love of freedom, firm character, courage, power/strength, beauty, etc.). A few copies of the postcards are held in the National Gallery in the artist’s personal legacy within the framework of the Gallery’s special collection of archival and documentary materials of artists and their companions. Ivan Vavpotič (1877–1943), the Slovenian painter, illustrator, designer and stage set designer, was born in Kamnik into a physician’s family. His father’s professional career soon led the family to Novo mesto, where Ivan spent his youth. In the Novo mesto grammar school he was a schoolmate and friend of poet Dragotin Kette (1876‒1899), a representative of the Slovenian literary Moderna. After the leaving examination (matura) in 1897 the young Vavpotič left for Prague to study there. He first enrolled in the academy of music to study piano, but in 1898 he shifted to the academy of fine arts, where he studied painting: figure composition with professors Václav Brožík (1851‒1901) and Vojtěch Hynais (1854−1925) and landscape painting with Julius Eduard Mařák (1832‒1899) and Maximilian Pirner (1853‒1924). Even before his graduation he spent a year in Paris (École du Louvre, 1900/1901) and half a year in Vienna to upgrade his art studies. He married in Prague, and after he finished his studies in 1905 he got employed as a teacher of drawing and art history at the Straka Academy; in parallel, he specialised in painting with Hynais. In 1906, he was in with a chance of returning to the homeland: with his wife and little son Bruno (1904‒1995), the later painter and stage set designer, he moved to Idrija where he taught freehand drawing at the secondary modern school. A daughter, Rut (1908‒1996), was also born there; she later became an excellent ballet dancer of European renown. ‒ In 1910 Ivan Vavpotič and his family finally moved to Ljubljana where he mainly earned his living as a freelance artist. The Great War meant the first discontinuance, when between 1915 and 1918 he worked at the War Press Office as a painter in the battlefield and in the rear, and between 1926 and 1929 he was employed as a stage set and costume designer in the Ljubljana National Theatre. Ivan Vavpotič was a somewhat original companion of the artists of the Vesna and the Sava groups. He is known for his pleasing bourgeois portraits, cityscapes, landscapes, and still lifes, and was also an excellent illustrator (he illustrated a number of Slovenian fiction books), designer (posters, postcards, promotion materials, he designed the first Slovenian postage stamp) and stage set designer (e.g.: Marij Kogoj, Črne maske (Black Masks, 1929), Slavko Grum, Dogodek v mestu Gogi (An Event in the Town of Goga, 1931)). He was a versatile artist who perfectly adapted his visual expression to the clients, but neither was extravagance alien to him. Vavpotič’s oeuvre comprises realistic, pleinairistic, Art Nouveau- and symbolism-inspired images and also surrealistic ones. Author Mojca Jenko Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 February – 4 March 2020 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivan Vavpotič, Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet on the 15th, 16th and 17th August 1914 in Ljubljana, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG B 888-3695 (photo Andrej Hirci, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivan Vavpotič, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1913, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-9 Ivan Vavpotič, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1913, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-13 Ivan Vavpotič, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1913, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-12 Ivan Vavpotič, Firm Character, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-5 Ivan Vavpotič, Fraternity, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-6 Ivan Vavpotič, Courage and Power, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-7 Ivan Vavpotič, Love of Freedom, Promotional Postcard for the Third Slovenian All-Sokols Slet in Ljubljana 1914, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG D 344-11 Revelations, March 2020 Smrekar and Gaspari: Caricatures of Slovenian Artists On Christmas Day 1926, Ilustrirani Slovenec (The Slovenian Illustrated, a weekly addition to the daily) published Hinko Smrekar’s (1883–1942) self-caricature and caricature of his colleague Maksim Gaspari (1883–1980) to introduce the house caricaturists of the year. The cooperation lasted through the next year, too. In 2018, the National Gallery of Slovenia purchased two caricatures, one of Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943) and one of Matija Jama (1872–1947), painted by Maksim Gaspari, which had appeared in the illustrated periodical on 3 May 1925. Smrekar’s portrayals are focused on the existential circumstances and the characters of the two artists, while Gaspari’s are a response to the specific events in artistic life of Ljubljana. At that time Jakopič conceived his large canvas The Blind Man. Around that time, Matija Jama returned to Ljubljana from Belgrade after his efforts in the capital of the new country had come to nothing. The impressionist generation thus re-entered the local scene. It is reasonable to argue that the Slovenian caricature surfaced by the participation of the Vesna Art Club members in the satirical periodicals Jež (The Hedgehog, 1902–1909) and Osa (The Wasp, 1905–1906). The prose-writer-and-linguist Fran Levstik’s Pavliha (The Joker, 1869–1870) might have been the model for Slovenian satirical papers throughout the first half of the 20th century, but the editor had to hire a Czech caricaturist, Karl Klíč (1841–1926). The members of the Vesna Club were the first generation of artists that entered the political scene through caricature and took a critical stance towards any social deviation regardless of its political origin. Rapprochement with the men of letters, where the cutting edge belonged to cooperation between the writer and dramatist Ivan Cankar (1876–1918) and Hinko Smrekar, sharpened satire as an effective weapon in the hands of Slovenian intelligentsia. It is a pertinent question whether the first subjects of the caricature were the artists or not. The physiognomic studies of the Renaissance were not really caricatures in their own right, while the visual pranks and teasers have been part-and-parcel of art studio life from time immemorial. Wonderful examples of the kind can be found in the sketchbooks of Janez Šubic (1850–1889), who was no stranger also to self-irony. The first concept of Cankar’s book Krpanova kobila (Krpan’s Mare, 1906–1907) was based on the caricatures of the Slovenian moguls of cultural life, several artists among them. Smrekar masterfully synthesised them into the Masquerade of Slovenian Literati and the Masquerade of Slovenian Artists in 1913. For the effort, invested in the execution of those two drawings, he couldn’t have expected an adequate reward, so he mused over the possibilities of having them reproduced and sold at lower price in larger volume. Gaspari solved the problem by drawing myriads of pastels on paper framed in pompous frames, as one can see in his Slovenian Madonnas exhibited in 1917. For a draughtsman it was highly urgent to find a job of an illustrator with a periodical in order to survive. Gaspari practically singlehandedly covered the entire initial year of The Slovenian Illustrated. Smrekar joined him in 1926. It seems that the post-1900 generation thus reached its second – and the last – climax. Jama endeared himself to the Slovenian bourgeoisie with his Gorenjsko landscapes and Lake Bled in particular, while Jakopič heightened his grandiloquence with social allegory that had started with The Blind Man. Of the Vesna Art Club Smrekar and Gaspari were the last active members that kept pace through caricature. Before the decade drew to a close, younger generations took control of the Slovenian art scene. Author Andrej Smrekar 5 March – 2 September 2020 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Maksim Gaspari, Naši impresionisti. Rihard Jakopič, Matija Jama, Ilustrirani Slovenec, 3rd May 1925 Hinko Smrekar, Naša letošnja karikaturista, Ilustrirani Slovenec, 25th December 1926 Maksim Gaspari, Ilustrirani Slovenec, 15th February 1926 Revelations, November 2020 Ivana Kobilca and Landscape Painting Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926) was not a landscape painter. In her works, the nature is mostly part of the backdrop and background of a figure. Kobilca’s pure landscapes are rare and despite loose brushwork, fresh colours and framing that speak of the painter’s familiarity of contemporary art currents, they remain bound to Realism. Kobilca constantly returned to paragons she studied in Munich and Paris when she was in her 20s and early 30s. She painted her most ambitious works incorporating nature between 1889 and 1893. Paintings From the Children’s World, By the Well and Summer, all dated to 1889, showcase the influence of Munich contemporary masters on view at the Glaspalast. Children in Grass and Under a Pergola meanwhile exhibit the influences of Parisian Salons and especially the neighbouring Barbizon, which was in Kobilca’s time there a completely established art colony. On occasion, Kobilca also merged landscape and still life, especially when working at the Kolovec Manison where she stayed with the Stare family. Kobilca belongs to the second generation of Slovenian Realists, together with Anton Ažbe (1862–1905), Jožef Petkovšek (1861–1898) and Ferdo Vesel (1861–1946). Of the four, only Vesel made numerous landscapes, also because he outlived the rest by decades. His works parallel the Impressionist pictures in their spontaneity and the treatment of light, while Kobilca’s landscapes mostly follow in the path of the Šubic brothers. Hence, her landscapes are also small Realist studies of terrain and weather, with exceptions like the sketch of Sarajevo’s cityscape. Questions regarding Kobilca’s landscapes are today also relevant for the art market, where they are in demand due to the artist’s fame and not because of their intrinsic quality. Among Kobilca’s students there were several amateur landscape painters, for example Rita Passini (1882–1976) in Sarajevo and Margarete and Hanni Schnock in Berlin. In Sarajevo, Kobilca socialized with a group of pleinairist artists, who exchanged works amongst themselves. Together with the lack of primary sources and of referential Kobilca’s landscapes, which often vary in quality, this results in a difficult and thankless task of determining true authorship of extant landscapes. Author Michel Mohor 5 November – 2 December 2020 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivana Kobilca, Kadivc’s Birth House, (1900–1910?), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 152, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, December 2020 The Nativity Scene by Sculptor Liza Hribar The legacy of Christmas nativity scenes (or cribs) connects the religious and artistic elements with ethnological traditions, while modern crib-making showcases great creative range both in manufacturing the necessary items and arranging the scenes. Through history, crib typology formed that ranges from traditional country cribs in corner home altars (bogkov kot) and burgher cribs on a chest of drawers to diverse modern solutions. Several Slovenian artists in the 20th century made nativity scenes; among them was Liza Hribar, an academically-trained sculptor who became one of the rare and also the most productive and excellent crib-makers in patinated or coloured baked clay. Besides producing traditional sets with many figures, she introduced unique design solutions into the crib-making. Liza Hribar was born in 1913 in Klagenfurt (Celovec) to a family steeped in visual arts, since her mother Elza Obereigner - Kastl (1884–1973) was also a sculptor and particularly a noted miniature painter. Liza spent her childhood and youth in Ljubljana, where she was educated in visual arts at the art school of the Probuda society; between 1931 and 1935, she studied sculpture and graduated at the Vienna Academy for Women (Wiener Frauen-Akademie). After study travels across Europe, she set up her studio at her home in Prečna Street in Ljubljana, and exhibited her works also in the Jakopič Pavilion. She mostly made figures and portraits in clay, wood and bronze, and also collaborated on goldsmith pieces by architect Jože Plečnik (1872–1957). The family was connected to well-known cultural workers of the Ljubljana burgher circles and there she met her future husband Zoran Hribar – when married, she gave up her maiden name Lizelot Obereigner and presented herself only as Liza Hribar. Following the Second World War, the Hribars were sentenced at the Nagode Trial, which resulted in complete artistic isolation of the sculptor. She dedicated herself to small-scale sculpture in baked clay for the Ljubljana store Dom (Home) and to commissions for the Church and private patrons. Occasionally she made book illustrations; among others, she decorated the collection of poems for children by her friend Lili Novy. Sculptor Liza Hribar died in 1996 and one year later the image of her Nativity Scene from Kropa decorated a post stamp, which went around Slovenia and the world. After the war, Hribar worked with ethnologists and helped establish Dom, a homemaking and arts-and-crafts company, where she later on also sold her products. She made decorative small sculptural items in patinated baked clay (buttons, brooches, pendants, city coat of arms, zodiac signs, putti – amoretti, book supports, candlesticks, wall and shelf lamps), and glass objects (glasses, vases, jugs). Additionally, she focused on religious art (nativity scenes, Stations of the Cross, Crucifixes, Mary-and-Jesus groups, saints, angels) in baked clay, wood and bronze and furnished multiple churches and chapels. She made her first church nativity scene in 1947 for the succursal church of St Mary in Kropa on the initiative of the locals and Jože Bertoncelj, a known artisan blacksmith. Later on, she made a series of large-scale church nativity scenes besides numerous smaller family cribs, and also developed a new crib type, where the entire Christmas event is presented in one whole. For her scenes, Hribar also made sketches, which are notably abstract and expressive in their unfinished state. The artist also reproduced some of her unique cribs; these casts offered people quality nativity figures for home decoration. The exhibition showcases a family crib by Liza Hribar from a private collection, where it has been set up at Christmastide to this day. The nativity scene is made of a classical selection of figures, to which the sculptor added a simplified architectural backdrop – the stable in Bethlehem. In this way, Hribar defined an overall concept not just of the individual figures but also of the set-up as a whole. The artist was in favour of baked clay figures with simple patina varnish, but clients preferred painted cribs that reminded them of the rich and colourful Slovenian tradition of nativity scenes. In her sculpture, Hribar maintained a realist style, but with modern stylization and individual characterisation of the figures that connected a psychological state of tenderness with suffering. By her own telling, she made cribs with passion, devotion and piety, since she believed the scenes were to bring warmth to families and their homes. This remains the central message of Christmas celebrations to this day. Author Andrej Doblehar 3 December 2020 – 3 February 2021 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Liza Hribar, The Nativity Scene, private collection, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, February 2021 The Mušič Drawings: Yesterday’s World for Tomorrow Zoran Mušič (1909–2005) was a painter of the academic school; his education helped him to be equally dexterous with drawings, paintings and prints. He used to tell how he was drawing regularly already in his youth, at school or at home. At the end of secondary school, his drawings were stiff, filled with details and shadings and barely sufficed for his acceptance to the academy. He grew into a drawing artist under the influence of his professors at the Zagreb Academy, who deliberately emphasized the importance of drawing and the routine of its usage when depicting objects and persons. Practice merged with example. All graduates of the academy in the 1930s were excellent drawing artists. After a few years of study, Mušič’s colleagues and professors admired his self-confidence and clear line. The artist was working in changing times, before photography became so ubiquitous and when the tradition of the 19th and the previous centuries moved to new questions and, especially after World War Two, to new ways of expression. The second academy the artist attended were the cruel months he spent imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp. For a time he was left without his pencil, clothes and without his human dignity. Like the rest of his comrades, the number 128 231 dealt only with existence, in its most brutal form. The phoenix was reborn when his innate empathy led him do draw the body of the dead after the liberation. In his second life as a human, the artist rediscovered the sunlight of the Mediterranean, enriched with the waves of the sea or Alpine mountain ridges. The painter, like during his time of schooling, used the drawing as an instrument in his outings and jottings in the field. His drawing did not stop or become more restrained. His drawings in graphite and other pencils remained a sketch of memory, expressions of his inner vision. His lines were not just his notepad; they were a way of thinking, always an independent authorial vision, where an image is formed in one’s mind. His hand and pencil were only a conscious and subconscious tools that executed his idea. The idea was maturing to the very end of Mušič’s creativity, turning from Venetian cityscapes to the artist himself, with his body becoming a landscape, a graph of his inner storm and a labyrinth, recognizable without words. Yesterday’s world for tomorrow. Author Gojko Zupan 4 February – 5 May 2021 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Zoran Mušič, Giudecca Canal, 1981, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Zoran Mušič, A Ship, 1980, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Zoran Mušič, Giudecca Canal, 1980, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Zoran Mušič, Marghera Harbour, 1985, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Zoran Mušič, The Aquileia Cathedral, 1984, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Zoran Mušič, Ida, 1986, The Bank Assets Management Company, d. d., (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, May 2021 Eloquent Majolica Jug – About the Commission and the Painting by Peter van Kessel A still life by the Dutch painter Peter van Kessel (1630/1640–1668), owned by the National Museum of Slovenia, has been in the National Gallery of Slovenia since 1989 as a temporary deposit and on display in its permanent collection. The painting depicts a table with food, various vegetables and dead birds. An important element in the picture proves to be a majolica jug with a »hidden coat of arms«. This has so far most likely been overlooked due to darkened pigments. It shows the arms of the influential Croatian noble family Zrinski (Zriny), who, due to the role in the anti-Habsburg conspiracy, which included Ban Peter Zrinski (1621–1671), Franz Christoph Frankopan (Frangipani) (1643–1671), Styrian nobleman Hans Erasmus Count Reinstein and Tattenbach (1631–1671), and Hungarian magnate Ferenc III Nádasdy (1623–1671), came to an infamous end. There is not much information about the painter Kessel. He is said to be native of Antwerp (1630/40?), worked in Würzburg (1658), Bamberg (1658), Gdańsk, Lübeck (1668), and died in Ratzeburg (1668). During his professional career he painted, among other things, a stilllife for the Danish king (1665), and before that (1662) also four paintings for the Herberstein family in Graz, now in the Regional Museum Maribor. The commission for the mentioned still life from the Zrinski family, who had regular contacts with Graz, could also have been made at that particular time. Two brothers, Nicholas VII (1620–1664) and Peter Zrinski come into consideration as possible clients. Both were politically influential individuals and had enviable military careers and a great sense of art. This was reflected in the luxurious furnishings of the family residences, the rich library and their and their literary activities in poetry. Still lifes are not just a randomly depicted arrangement of objects, but often conceal a deeper, symbolic meaning. Thus, the elements in Kessel’s painting could also be associated with the luxurious noble life of the Zrinski family. The lined table not only shows a rich meal, but with cheese and majolica it also indicates a lucrative economic activity in Zrinski’s territories, wine- and cheese-making, which provided the family with economic power and social status. Author Katra Meke Translation Alenka Klemenc 6 May – 2 June 2021 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Peter van Kessel, Crayfish, Dead Birds and Vegetables, National Museum of Slovenia, N 13042, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Detail with Majolica The coat of arms of the Zrinski family from Valvasor’s Great Armorial, (1688) Revelations, September 2021 Matevž Langus, St Mary Magdalene, 1846 Mary Magdalene is considered the first woman to follow Jesus and serve him. She witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus, his descent from the Cross, entombment and resurrection. She was the first to pass the good news to his followers. She was regarded as a sinner due to a mistake made by Pope Gregory the Great. Matevž Langus (1792–1855) depicted St Mary Magdalene at least eight times. Mary Magdalene is the most often pictured woman saint after Mother Mary. Most of Langus’ depictions follow the iconographic tradition of treating Mary Magdalene as a sinner and a repentant. In three instances he presents the saint on her own, while he included her into multi-figural scenes of the Crucifixion and St Mary’s Assumption five times. The depictions are more intimate in oil and more monumental in fresco technique; we also know of preparatory studies in graphite in sketch books. This points to the constant presence of the saint’s image in Langus’ body of work, in different patron circles and in the collective memory of the first half of the 19th century. The image of Mary Magdalene from 1846, kept at the National Gallery of Slovenia, is the most emotionally expressive among Langus’ depiction of the penitent sinner. Swollen teary face, mouth open in ecstasy, eyes turned upwards and sensual depiction of hair falling across her hand and cleavage remind us of depictions by Guido Reni (1575–1642), a Baroque painter from Bologna. Reni perfected the typical rapturous images of saints looking towards the sky, with his pictures of Mary and Magdalene proving especially influential. Following the instructions of the Conter-Reformation exegesis and the Tridentine Decree on holy images, Reni recognized the ideal female beauty and perfection in the images of Mary Magdalene. He painted around a dozen versions of St Magdalene. They all share the idealized sensuality of the young saint, while differing in details such as hand gestures, the gaze, composition and background. Reni’s Magdalenes are thus a symbol of devoted prayer, deep contemplation and spiritual ecstasy. The Gallery’s St Mary Magdalene by Langus leans on Reni’s St Magdalene in Prayer in composition and colour; the picture was kept in Louvre, Paris until 1897 and is now in Musée des beaux–arts, Quimper. As in Reni’s work, so is Langus’ Magdalene also placed before the rocky shelter in nature. Reni’s Magdalene is clothed in elaborately folded yet simple mantle, while Langus painted the saint in modern clothes. The saint’s conspicuous tears and spread-out hair allowed Langus to intensify the emotions up to the pathetic level and gave the picture a number of penitent connotations. From her regular attributes he selects a skull, placing it in Magdalene’s right hand as a reminder of the transience of life, a vessel of ointment, and a cross in the background. Absent the halo Magdalene’s image seems rather secular, leading us to assume that the picture was meant for private devotion. This conclusion can be supported by a more formally presented Magdalene in Langus’ picture for the mensa of the side altar in the Franciscan Church of St Jacob in Kamnik. In the monastic, preaching milieu the picture of the saint had to be more seemly and include a halo, a book and a whip. Both mentioned oil paintings are reductions of a fresco that Langus painted in the nave of the Parish Church of St Martin in Šmartno under Šmarna gora in 1841. The fully-figured St Magdalene there is in rapture in the middle of a rocky landscape and the central figure of the ambitiously-planned illusionistic altar. The fresco is one of Langus’ earliest works of this kind and was supported as a part of a strategy by the Prince Bishop of Ljubljana Anton Alojzij Wolf (1782–1859) for the renewal of the Church. For the consecration of the church in Šmartno, the bishop financed these fresco decorations of the altars. The importance of the commission is evident also by the drawings in Langus’ sketchbook, kept by the Gallery. In it, we find several compositional sketches and coloured jottings that the painter used to design his fresco painting and his later images of St Magdalene in oil. Author Kristina Preininger 2 September – 6 October 2021 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matevž Langus, St Mary Magdalene, 1846, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 191, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Guido Reni, St Mary Magdalene in Prayer, (1627–1628), Musée des beaux-arts, Quimper, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Matevž Langus, St Mary Magdalene, (c. 1841), Šmartno under Šmarna gora, Church St Martin, Frescoe on the south wall in the nave, (photo Kristina Preininger) Matevž Langus, Sketch from the Sketchbook, Narodna galerija, NG G 137, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, Sketch from the Sketchbook, Narodna galerija, NG G 137, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, October 2021 Ljubljana Photographer Ivan Kotar and the Photo Documentation of the First Slovenian Art Exhibition We do not know much about the life of professional photographer Ivan Kotar (1865‒1908). The master is mainly known through his rich and extensive body of work, most of which is kept by the National Museum of Slovenia. Kotar left his photographic legacy to Rudolfinum, the then Provincial Museum of Carniola: the vast majority of the material is kept by the Department for History and Applied Arts, with some of the images in the care of the Graphics Cabinet. Individual photographs can also be found in other public and private collections: in the Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia, in the legacy of Dr Mirko Kambič and in the National Gallery of Slovenia, where we keep five signed positives in the Special Collection of Archival Documents. Most of what we know about Kotar can be gleaned from his obituary in the newspaper Slovenski narod (6 April 1908): »The 42-year-old photographer Ivan Kotar died in Ljubljana yesterday morning after a long and painful illness. The deceased was a gifted artist who made many masterfully executed shots of landscapes and images. Of particular note are the finely and precisely executed pictures of archaeological objects, such as vessels and various ornaments for the Rudolfinum Provincial Museum. He also produced beautiful pictures of splendid halls of the provincial government palace in Ljubljana. He leaves behind a widow and two dependent children without any property. Let the memory of him be gentle!« A news item with identical content was also published by the newspaper Slovenec on the same day. – On Saturday, 11 April, Slovenski narod in the column »The Deceased in Ljubljana« mentioned that among the people who died last week »Ivan Kotar, photographer [age of] 42, [lived at] Rimska cesta 2«, who died on 5 April. – Besides the public notices from the time of the master’s death, there are only a few facts known about Kotar: that he was first a musician and only later became a photographer, that he had his studio on Emonska cesta 10 (Emona Street) in Ljubljana since 1898 and that he collaborated with the Provincial Museum in Ljubljana. Ivan Kotar, who has been almost completely erased from the collective memory by the passage of time, was apparently a respected photographer during his life. His legacy certainly offers the most profound glimpse into his life: he was engaged in portrait photography, he had a keen sense of documenting cultural and natural heritage, he was a chronicler of his time (he immortalized a number of important contemporary events – from personal, religious and cultural celebrations to construction feats and the fallout of various disasters); on several occasion he used the trigger to photographically ‘freeze’ the artistically perfected views of various Slovenian landscapes. The Provincial Museum of Carniola played an important role in the master’s professional life; he was hired as its museum photographer. They were obviously pleased with his services, since he stayed in this function for the rest of his life. Undoubtedly, the master was also a lover of fine arts. He left us images of the First Slovenian Art Exhibition in the City Hall in Ljubljana (15 September – 28 October 1900); a photograph of painter Matej Sternen (1870‒1949), taken in 1901 during his work on the presbytery decoration in the renovated Trnovo church in Ljubljana, has been preserved; and in 1908 Kotar was in the studio of Ivan Zajec (1869‒1952) when the sculptor was making a relief for the tomb of the Majdič family in Kranj. Kotar also took excellent pictures of church interiors (for example the Cathedral and the Ursuline Church in Ljubljana and the parish churches in Škofja Loka and Gornji Grad), including paraphernalia and paintings, which often accompanied professional articles published in contemporary periodicals like Dom in svet and Ljubljanski zvon. Ivan Kotar is also the author of a series of images on postcards, issued at the turn of the century. They depict various palaces, bridges, churches, squares and streets in Ljubljana, views of Vrhnika, Ljubljana, Železniki, Naklo near Kranj, Postojna and Koče near Pivka, and there are also postcards with views of the entrance to Postojna Cave and the front of the mignificent Haasberg mansion in Planinsko polje. Author Mojca Jenko 7 October – 3 November 2021 National Gallery of Slovenia Cankarjeva cesta 20 Ljubljana Ivan Kotar, First Slovenian Art Exhibition in the City Hall in Ljubljana, 1900 Greetings from Postojna Cave, postcard, dated 19th April 1900, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Charles Bridge on Dolenjska cesta in Ljubljana, postcard, 1902, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Ivan Kotar, Alojz Gangl: Janez Vajkard Valvasor, 1903, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Ivan Kotar, After the Fire in Horjul, 1905, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Ivan Kotar, Celebration before the Unveiling of the Prešeren Monument on St Mary’s Square in Ljubljana, 10 September 1905, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Ivan Kotar, Fran Levstik, Slovenian Writer and Journalist, 1887, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Revelations, November 2021 Andreas Lach and the Vienna Floral Painting Andreas Lach (1817–1882) was a student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts between 1837 and 1839. He studied under Thomas Ender (1793–1875) and Joseph Mössmer (1780–1845), who both taught landscape painting, and Sebastian Wegmayr (1776–1857), a professor specializing in floral still lifes. When the twenty-year-old Andreas Lach came to Vienna, the city’s floral painting was in full bloom. Biedermeier floral still lifes of the Vienna School were a European phenomenon of their time and marked the revival of the Golden Age of Dutch painting and of influential 17th and 18th century masters. The floral genre owes its re-emergence to joint venture between the class on floral painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory. Floral painting played a very different role in the two halves of the 19th century. In the first half, its significance was so great it was equal to the term Biedermeier. Biedermeier floral painting was created out of love of nature among all strata of society, including the imperial family, and, of course, encompassed both native and exotic flowers. The Enlightenment showed intense interest in foreign lands, their inhabitants, flora and fauna. This greatly influenced botany and the flourishing of botanical illustration around 1800. Important contributions were made by botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817), who was summoned to Vienna from the Netherlands. This was a time of botanical and private gardens kept by wealthy plant lovers and of greenhouses where fashionable exotic flowers grew. Members of the imperial family, aristocracy and the bourgeoisie became devoted amateur botanists. The refuge of countless private gardens on the outskirts of Vienna was greatly prized, influencing the general spirit and fashion. People purchased botanical publications, floral still lifes and other objects, such as the exquisite products of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory. This leads us to a remarkable painter, Johann Baptist Drechsler (1756–1811), who in 1787 became the director of the drawing school and the Imperial-Royal Porcelain Manufactory. Drechsler was inspired by Old Masters, especially Jan van Huysum (1682–1749) and Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750). His art showed a masterful interpretation, not just in the imitation of floral motifs, but especially in the use of colour and lights in the spirit of the new realism. In 1807, J. B. Drechsler established a class on floral still lifes at the Academy of Fine Arts. The professor joined the porcelain manufactory and the Academy in a successful venture. The motif, now independent, immediately influenced the stylistic development of floral still lifes. At this stage, the scientific study of plants and the naturalistic depiction of flowers began to overlap, both at the Academy and at the Manufactory. Events of 1848 changed everything and in the second half of the century the public interest shifted to other art forms, styles and motifs. The subject was withdrawn from the Academy curriculum in 1850. Andreas Lach, who lived and worked in mid-century Vienna, did very well in these turbulent times. His painting teacher passed onto him modified and rejuvenated motifs that drew inspiration from the past and quickly became part of modern trends. In the capital, Lach diligently exhibited his still lifes, which the critics saw as realistic, fresh and innovative. Lach liked to place his floral motifs on mountain ridges and above dangerous overhangs in the Alpine landscape; after 1850, he specialized in still lifes on forest floor, where he placed bouquets of solely garden flowers. Author Jassmina Marijan 4 November – 5 January 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Andreas Lach, Still Life with Flowers, (1850–1882), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 1931, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Andreas Lach, Still Life with Roses on a Forest Floor, (1850–1882), private collection, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Andreas Lach, Still Life with Alpine Flowers, (1850), private collection, (photo Wikimedia Commons) Revelations, December 2021 Nativity Scene of Štefan Šubic: from the Parish Church in Železniki To this day, setting up a nativity scene remains a beloved Christmas custom, popular in homes, churches and other public spaces, where nativity exhibitions are common. The making of the scenes, both of figures and landscapes, is marked by extraordinary creativity and enthusiasm of various generations, linking the present with older traditions of our ancestors. European countries and lands cultivate a diverse nativity culture, with the most important one emanating from Naples and Tyrol. The latter also influenced Slovenian nativity design in the late 19th century. Foreign examples of scenes differ in the typology of the entire design and figures, which reflect geographical and cultural specifics and the time period of their placement. Traditionally, Slovenian nativity scenes were presented on the Holy Eve, 24 December, and retired on Candlemas, 2 February. In the meantime, on the feast day of the Three Wise Men, the set-up of the nativity changes, since the Holy Family, angels, shepherds and sheep are joined by the three Magi from the East, arriving with retinue. This is also the system of the large-scale church nativity scene in the parish church in Železniki, which this year represent the Slovenian artistic nativity tradition in the National Gallery of Slovenia. The nativity scene from Železniki belong to the type of scenery scenes that appeared and became popular in the 19th century − at a time when nativity scenes in churches became widespread. Usually, the nativity figures were sculpted and are associated with carving artistry, while the scenery nativity sets merge the painting of stage cribs with the backdrop made of wood that gradually opens towards the viewer and creates the illusion of a realistic space in the scene of the birth of Christ. Nativity figures, painted on wooden planks, can stand alone or be part of a larger group placed into a scene. Only a few of these nativity sets survived, making them an invaluable part of cultural heritage. The first such nativity was painted by Leopold Layer (1752–1828) for the parish church in Kranj in the early 19th century. It was put on display for decades and was probably also observed by France Prešeren, the greatest Slovenian poet. The scene was later donated to the parish of Predoslje. There, in the interwar period, the nativity was replaced by a new set by the painter Matija Bradaška the Younger (1852–1915), which is put on display to this day, while the restored Layer’s nativity scene is kept in the Nativity Museum in Brezje. In the mid-19th century, the painter Matevž Langus (1792–1855) painted the stage nativity set for the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation in Ljubljana, which was used up to around 1900, when it passed into private hands. Due to its poor condition, the painter Anton Jebačin (1850–1927) made a copy, while the original is again with the Franciscans. The sources report of other stage scenes, but they have not been preserved or are not on display anymore. These types of sets are similar to the stage tombs churches erect during Easter, which have been preserved in greater numbers in Slovenian churches and testify to Easter customs and habits. The nativity scene for Železniki was designed and painted by Štefan Šubic (1820–1884), a craftsman and artist, for the newly-built parish church of St Anthony of the Desert. According to tradition, Šubic painted several stage sets, but the ones in Železniki are the only ones extant, and are, restored and technically upgraded, regularly on view during Christmas holidays. The scenes are painted on wooden planks, while the background with the view of the city of Bethlehem is painted on canvas and placed inside a wooden frame. The nativity scene consists of two central scenes on separate stages, which change during the festivities: the first backdrop features the birth of Christ, while the second the Adoration of the Magi. The nativity used to be placed inside the chapel of St Andrew, but today it stands in front of the main altar. During Second World War, the locals took Šubic’s stage nativity scene out of the burnt parish church and saved it from destruction. Its incredible value is evident to younger generations, too, which takes care of its maintenance and set-up. The author of the nativity scene, Štefan Šubic, led an artisan workshops in Poljane nad Škofjo Loko, which in the 19th century produced equipment for churches near and far, while his sons Janez (1850–1889) and Jurij (1855–1890), the noted Slovenian realists, reached the pinnacle of Slovenian visual arts. In the Permanent Collection of the National Gallery you can find The Adoration of the Magi, a painting by Janez Šubic which continues the tradition of church paintings of his father’s Poljana workshop and its depiction of Christmas events. Author Andrej Doblehar 2 December 2021 – 2 February 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Štefan Šubic, The Nativity Scene, Parish church, Železniki, (photo Bojan Rihtaršič) Štefan Šubic, The Nativity Scene, detail, (photo Bojan Rihtaršič) Revelations, January 2022 Matija Jama: Portraits Matija Jama (1872–1947), Slovenian impressionist painter most worldly of his generation, was born a hundred and fifty years ago. So dedicated to landscape and the countryside has perhaps been only Ivan Grohar (1867–1911), although in a very different manner. The samples of other genres are rather rare in Jama’s oeuvre. They are limited to the field studies of types (heads or full-scale »studies« of the shepherds and peasant girls of Bela krajina).The second group consists of images of people connected with his family. We can safely argue that Jama did not paint public portraits. An outstanding exception are the unique Portrait of Leo Souvan (1900), and a depiction of his sister Portrait of Rozi Bleiweis with Children (1901). Both are on view in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Slovenia, New Wing. Jama took the commission of his friend and patron as a professional assignment, cast it into the modernist Art Nouveau mould and at the same time dignified the image of a self-confident socialite, a member of the social elite of Ljubljana. Almost all other portraits known today remained in the artist’s bequest, so they must certainly be images of his immediate entourage. Among them are also thirteen of all-together fifteen known self-portraits. In the ACH Collection, today part of the National Gallery’s holdings, there are four female portraits and three self-portraits that must belong to the »family images«. The model in the portrait of a dark curly-haired young woman has not been identified. Frontal bust of the girl in a dark dress is executed with the unleashed silhouette and emancipated brushstroke. The dark tone of her hair and dress extrapolates the tan of her face and the lowered neckline. The smaller portrait in three-quarter profile is of painter’s elder daughter Madelaine, reunited with her father in 1938. Taken in a close-up with cropped contour is painted in a very different manner, although probably at the same time. The elongated brushstrokes model the volumes and extoll the blush of her cheeks, while the whole is tempered in colour and well balanced in tone. The remaining two portraits perhaps belong to the same sitter, most likely Agnes, the younger daughter who visited the artist with her mother in 1939. The sombre and tempered image is articulated with rather long brushstrokes and dulled palette. As though lacking the depth of field, the face is sharply defined, while the peripheral areas lend a sense of incompleteness. Particularly outstanding is the portrait in a white shirt and with an asymmetrical hairdo. By repetition of the facial outline parallel to the picture surface, Jama produced an extremely modern painting that in tackling of painting problems announces the solutions of the second half of the 20th century. Jama’s faces seem as specimens under a microscope offered to the mercy of the painter’s gaze, particularly when looking at the self-portraits. All three of them were included in the 1974 exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art. The dark bust with a ray of light from the right could be dated to the late 1920s. The improvised make of the stretcher that holds the board indicates that there was no definitive purpose to the artist’s intentions. It was rather an experiment. Quite differently touches us the stern face with spectacles. However, the crudely expanded shoulder line indicates its state of un-finish. The small, brightly lit image, although described in the 1974 catalogue as unfinished, touches us vividly and expressively. It manifests a tremendously confident painting routine, which pulls out the crucial elements of the painter’s physiognomy by suggestive and broad brushstrokes. That paint handling chronologically corresponds to the actual realisms of the 1930s, while the gestural laying on of the basic colours that at the same time determine the light and the shaded areas are appreciated by today’s viewers who draw from the experience of gestural painting of the second half of the 20th century. Author Andrej Smrekar 6 January – 1 February 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matija Jama, Portrait of a Young Woman 1, (1935−1940), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3634, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matija Jama, Portrait of a Young Woman 2, (1935−1940), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3645, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matija Jama, Self-portrait, (1935–1940), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3655, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matija Jama, Self-portrait, (after 1945), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3655, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, February 2022 Ivana Kobilca: a Witness to European Secessions As an artist, Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926) felt most comfortable abroad, even if she was working for domestic clients. Her contacts with the Slovenian art scene are sparse, especially when compared to her relationships with foreign artists. The feeling was mutual – Kobilca was reluctant to exhibit in the Jakopič pavilion and in the 1913 group caricature of the Slovenian artistic community by Hinko Smrekar, Kobilca is not included (the tall giant on the left is Pavel Gustinčič). Kobilca associated more with foreign artists who were involved in the four major secessionist art movements in Munich, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. The core of her European group were fellow students who, like her, attended the Munich Academy for Women, led by Alois Erdtelt (1851–1911): Rosa Pfäffinger (1866–1949), Maria Slavona (1865–1931) and Käthe Kollwitz (1867−1945). When Fritz von Uhde (1848–1911), co-founder of the Munich Secession (founded 1892), advised Kobilca to try exhibiting in Paris, she connected with the tireless titan of French art at the time, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898), who encouraged Kobilca, like many other artists, who gathered around him, to send her works to the Salon of the French Secession (founded 1890). In Paris, Kobilca lived with Pfäffinger, Slavona and Willy Gretor (1868–1923), a manipulative art patron, who was connected to several avant-garde artists. During her life in Sarajevo, she met Maximilian Liebenwein (1869–1926), the future vice-president of the Vienna Secession (founded in 1897), who, like her, was a regular contributor to the illustrated Bosnian magazine Nada (published 1895–1903). In Berlin, she kept in touch with Käthe Kollwitz (who also raised the son of Rosa Pfäffinger), a member of the Berlin Secession (founded 1898), and lived only a short walk away from its exhibition centre. Kobilca reached her creative peak in Paris at the age of thirty-two and then stuck to realism, which she softened with modern derivatives only in composition and pentimenti. With the exception of Sarajevo, Kobilca commissions abroad were less ambitious and she found it difficult to tolerate rejection and criticism. She herself reported how hard it was for foreign masters to establish themselves in metropolitan centres, nor did she stay anywhere long enough to really settle in. Interesting is the juxtaposition with Käthe Kollwitz and Maria Slavona: both found success quite late, on home soil (in Berlin) and with institutional support; Kollwitz’s mentor was Max Liebermann, president of the Berlin Secession, and Maria Slavona, also a member of the Berlin association, married Otto Ackermann, a Swiss art dealer. Slavona focused on Impressionism and exhibited at the Miethke Salon in Vienna and the Salon of Paul Cassirer in Berlin when she was in her forties, and Käthe Kollwitz reached the peak of her expressionist career after the fifties. Kobilca also got a new impetus at this turning point in her life, but her development was interrupted by the First World War and the painter returned from Berlin to Ljubljana, where she was awaited by (post)war shortages, undemanding clients and domestic artistic clique. Author Michel Mohor 3 February – 2 March 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Ivana Kobilca, Parisian Woman with a Letter, (1891–1892), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 163, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca, Pavla Razinger, (1885–1889), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 155, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Ivana Kobilca and European Secessions, (sketch by Michel Mohor) Revelations, March 2022 Sculptor and Medallion Maker Anton Sever: Donation to the National Gallery of Slovenia (1960‒1961) In its issue on 2 April 1961, Delo, Slovenia’s preeminent newspaper of its time, carried a public thanks by Karel Dobida, the principal of the National Gallery of Slovenia, who expressed gratitude to the medal maker and sculptor Anton Sever (1886–1965) for a sizable donation of his works, gifted to the Gallery between 1960 and 1961. »He donated his best works that remained with him,« wrote principal Dobida. In addition to the collection of 217 plaster cast gems, 21 metal medallions and plaques by twelve international, older and contemporary masters, Sever donated 63 of own works − 15 bronze medallions and 11 plaques, 13 metal badges, 7 plaster casts, 10 matrixes and 7 smaller-scale recreations. »This collection holds a number of Sever’s best art from early works up to today and represents a true run-through of the author’s entire life work of the last half-century.« Franc Andrej Šega (1711–1787) was the only obvious predecessor to Sever, who for decades remained the only Slovenian artist to dedicate fully to medallion-making. He depicted a series of well-known Slovenians, like the poet France Prešeren, in his debut piece from 1909, and the poet’s muse Julija Primic, whom he captured from the painting by Matevž Langus from 1835, and his own contemporaries, like painting and drawing artist Saša Šantel, sculptor Karla Bukovec Mrak, Bishop Anton Bonaventura Jeglič, surgeon Edo Šlajmer, which reflect the culture and history of the first half of the 20th century. His portraits reveal a knowledge of Antiquity, with the Renaissance serving as an obvious model. Besides realist and in-depth portraits, Sever also modelled designs for commemorative badges, shields, coasts of arms, emblems, pendants, rings and small sculpture. In the years 1900‒1904, Sever studied in the artisanal department of the Vocational School of Arts and Crafts in Ljubljana, where he was taught by the sculptor Alojz Gangl (1859–1935). After attending a state arts and craft school in Graz, he studied at the specialist school of engraving and medal making at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna between 1907 and 1912 with Professor Rudolf Marschall (1873–1967). After the First World War, he initially worked as a freelance artist, until in 1920, after passing the professor’s examination, he accepted a job at the Ljubljana Technical Secondary School, where he taught until the end of August 1960. From 1939 onwards, he led the sculpture, engraving and ceramics department. In the years 1924–1941, he headed the Probuda art school in Ljubljana. During his forty years as a teacher, he helped to shape students’ tastes and aesthetic standards and raised awareness about the true notion of beauty. Sever’s works are characterized by his mastery of technique, thoughtful composition and a good knowledge of previous art styles. His art offers a special aesthetic satisfaction since it embodies the perfection of forms and honours beauty as such. Author Alenka Simončič 3 March – 6 April 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Anton Sever, Dr France Prešeren, (1909), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 328, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Anton Sever, Julija Primic, (1951), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 353, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Anton Sever, Karla Bulovec Mrak, (1933), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 349, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Anton Sever, Dr Edo Šlajmer, (1924), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 335, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Anton Sever, A Blind Man, (1911), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 329, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, April 2022 Matevž Langus, St George, 1854 Matevž Langus, whose 230th birthday will be celebrated on 9 September this year (1792–1855), has repeatedly painted the image of St George. He included the city patron on a fresco in the dome of the Ljubljana Cathedral. He leaned on the Baroque illusionist proposal of Giulio Quaglio (1668−1751). Two more altar paintings in oil have been preserved, pointing to two sources from which Langus drew inspiration. The painter relied on an older Baroque template when he painted St George in his fight with the dragon for the main altar of the parish church in Šturje near Ajdovščina. He copied the influential work of Martino Altomonte (1657–1745) from the Ljubljana Church of the Teutonic Knights, which represents St George on horseback in a dramatic skirmish with the dragon. Six years younger Langus’ painting of St George from the collection of the National Gallery relies to a large extent on a painting by his contemporary Philipp Veit (1793–1877). The Berlin master, who is considered one of the key painters of the Nazarene movement, painted St George during his work in Frankfurt in 1833, for the altar on the northern side chapel of the church of St George in Bensheim. Veit’s pencil drawing has been preserved, and the motif was transferred to copperplate by Jiří Döbler (1788–1845) in 1837. Veit’s St George is one of those Frankfurt paintings that contemporaries praised as simple, beautiful and pious. Veit’s version of George’s triumphal-contemplative presentation shows the echoes of Raphael’s Renaissance art, while also drawing attention to another divine source for Nazarene German painters, namely Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Langus’s painting of St George is much bigger than Veit’s. Langus fully summed up the saint’s posture, with his right leg raised next to the dragon, leaning on a spear with a banner. Also, the gentle youthful face, George’s armour, outerwear, headgear, sabre and shield are carefully summarized according to the German model. In the composition, the painter kept the king’s daughter in prayer on the right, and added an angelic escort on highlighted clouds above. He changed and expanded the rocky landscape, adding a line of earth to the foreground and a silhouette of the castle in the background. Although the colour deviates from the pattern – the most striking change is George’s vibrant red dress – we can also recognize a characteristic Nazarene colour palette in Langus’ painting. Veit’s composition and the characteristic colour are reinterpreted with slightly melancholic mood accents, which reflect Langus’ knowledge and use of modern Nazarene patterns. In Langus’s sketchbook we also find a sketch for a picture, most likely drawn according to an extant print. The size and shape of Langus’ painting testify that it was an altarpiece. When purchasing the painting in 1988, the National Gallery was unable to obtain more accurate information on provenance. A tangible trace of the former owners of the painting was hidden in the notes of France Stele, who in 1929 recorded seeing the Langus’ painting of St George, signed and dated 1854 in Wilsonia, Grimščice near Bled. Here, the painting was still in the art collection of Dr. Ivan Švegel in 1950. The connection between the creation of the painting and the diplomat and politician, Baron Josef Schwegel (1836–1914), who bought the Grimščice Manor in 1859 and was born in Zgornje Gorje, where a new altar for the parish church of St George was made in 1853 and 1854, remains a tempting assumption. Author Kristina Preininger 7 April – 4 May 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Matevž Langus, St George, 1854, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 2412, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Matevž Langus, St George, sketchbook, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 136, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Philipp Veit, St Georg, 1833, Parish church, Bensheim, (photo © Parish Bensheim) Philipp Veit, St Georg, (c. 1833), private collection, (photo Norbert SUHR, Philipp Veit, p. 298) Jiři Döbler, St Georg, 1837, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, G 8326, (photo www.webumenia.sk) Revelations, May 2022 Marija Auersperg Attems, Vases on the Window, (1840–1850) Marija Rozalija Attems (1816–1880) married Anton Alexander Auersperg, known as Anastasius Grün (1806–1876), in 1839 in her native Graz. We know little about her life, but the main events can be reconstructed after the life of her husband. The Auerspergs were artistically gifted, including Marija’s husband, who was a poet. Devotion to the arts within the wider family was an important advantage for Marija, since her efforts to develop own artistic talent were supported not only by her husband, but also by other members of the large aristocratic family. During the winter months, the couple lived mainly in Graz and Vienna, and thus were at the very centre of artistic happenings. In the first half of the 19th century, the Vienna school of floral still lifes was a phenomenon in Europe of the time and the embodiment of the Biedermeier style. Biedermeier floral painting was created out of a love of nature that was prevalent across the whole of society, including the imperial family, and this, of course, encompassed both domestic and exotic flowers. It was a time of flourishing botanical and private gardens of wealthy plant lovers, and greenhouses for cultivating fashionable exotic flowers. Members of the imperial family, aristocracy and bourgeoisie became devoted amateur botanists. On the outskirts of Vienna, the refuge of countless private gardens was coveted and all this influenced the general mood, the fashion that spread to many areas of life. The Auersperg couple also followed the general trends and planted orchards, tree-lined avenues and ornamental gardens on their Dornava estate and along the Šrajbarski turn in Leskovec near Krško. For the trained painter, her own flower garden was also a source for the study of still lifes, which is reflected in the accurately painted plant species. Women did not have access to academic education until the end of the 19th century. Art courses were part of the general education of middle and upper class girls, but all women with real ambitions had to rely on private schooling. The still lifes of Marija Auersperg Attems show the influences of various leading painters of the Vienna school of Biedermeier floral still lifes, which revived the golden age of Dutch painting and influential masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Johann Baptist Drechsler (1756−1811), a remarkable painter and the founder of the School of Floral Painting, was inspired by the Old Masters, most notably by Jan van Huysum (1682−1749) and Rachel Ruysch (1664−1750). Like her artistic colleagues, Marija Auersperg Attems copied after older masters as well as her contemporaries, including Franz Xaver Petter (1791–1866), but she also knew how to freely interpret their work and introduce her own ideas and motifs. In the still life Vases on the Window, three bouquets are placed on a shelf in front of the landscape with a streamr, a meadow, a village and hills in the background. The painting may have been created during the painter’s stay on Šrajbarski turn, where she found motifs for her painting in the surrounding nature, especially in her own flower garden and the nearby forest. Most of the accurately depicted flowers do not bloom at the same time, so the painter certainly helped herself with patterns, especially with the painted tulip. The belly vase made of glass, which was a very widespread and fashionable element of floral still lifes, is also inspired by Drechsler. Maria Auersperg Attems did not sell her paintings, but kept them for herself or gifted them to relatives and friendly noble families. Her still lifes are kept at the National Gallery of Slovenia, the National Museum of Slovenia, The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Landesgalerie in Graz and in private collections. Author Jassmina Marijan 5 May – 1 June 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Marija Auersperg Attems, Two Vases on the Window, (1840–1850), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 969, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2022 Frančišek Smerdu: Motif from the National Liberation Movement, Conservation Issues of Plaster Casts In 2012, the National Gallery of Slovenia received a donation of thirty-seven sculptures by Frančišek Smerdu. Plaster casts possess a special kind of spontaneous charm. They are often made from cheap materials that can be found lying around in a sculptor’s studio. In Smerdu’s case, his casts were mostly used as models for stone carvings or bronze castings, or functioned as maquettes, documenting the work’s creative path from ideation to final form. As such, plaster casts are precious documents offering an unfiltered access to the artist’s creative process. The conservation of the Smerdu donation was a challenge for the Gallery’s restorers, which worked on this project for 8 years. Plaster itself is a fragile material and highly sensitive to water, moisture and mechanical stress. Moreover, plaster casts are complex systems; they often contain reinforcements made from various materials (wood, canvas, metal etc.) which age differently and thus influence the condition of the whole. The relief Motif from the National Liberation Movement is a good example of this complexity. The conservation treatment Upon arrival to the restoration studio of the National Gallery of Slovenia, it was immediately clear that the relief was in a bad state of conservation. The surface of the work was covered in a dark layer of dust, and the relief itself had significant cracks and was structurally unstable. The specific construction method used by Smerdu also meant that we were severely limited in the range of available treatment options for the object. How did the damage occur? Smerdu cast the relief in two layers. To reinforce the structure, he submerged a piece of canvas in the first pour of plaster, and encased two wooden boards in the second pour, which are still visible from the back of the relief. Fluctuations in humidity and temperature caused the wood to contract, expand and warp, which consequently caused the plaster to crack and break with it. The plaster fragments were kept together only by the canvas reinforcement and the wooden planks. Surface cleaning We began the conservation treatment by gently vacuuming the front and the back of the relief. More dust was removed using latex-free make-up sponges. Next, we used a water-based gel made with Agar, a strong gellant extracted from a type of algae. Agar gels are able to retain a considerable amount of water and thus allow the use of wet cleaning methods on fragile and water-sensitive surfaces such as plaster. We poured slightly warm Agar gel on the surface, let it cool, and harden for a few minutes. Then we simply peeled it away with the remaining dirt, which bound itself to the gel. Lastly, we removed the thicker patches of dirt mechanically, with a scalpel. Stabilizing the structure The canvas reinforcement, which still linked the broken fragments, was a huge obstacle when attempting to stabilize the structure of the relief. The canvas did not allow us to apply the adhesive evenly inside the cracks. Instead of gluing, we decided to inject a filler into the cracks and thus stabilize the structure by filling the voids between the broken pieces. The filler material was applied by brush or injection and the eventual overflow was cleaned with acetone. Author Erica Sartori 2 June – 31 August 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Frančišek Smerdu, Motif from the National Liberation Movement, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 996, relief before and after conservation, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) The relief during the treatment. Removal of dust with a soft makeup sponge, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, September 2022 Jurij Šubic: The Gardener and the Impression of Romantic Life in Realism »The new gardener’s boy had long hair kept in place by a piece of cloth tied around his head with a little bow. He was walking along the path with his watering can filled to the brim and his other arm stretched out to balance the load. Slowly, carefully, he watered the nasturtiums as if pouring out coffee and milk, until the earth at the foot of each plant dissolved into a soft black patch; when it was large and moist enough he lifted the watering can and passed on to the next plant.« (Italo Calvino: Adam, One Afternoon from The Tales) Jurij Šubic (1855–1890) spent the autumn of 1882 in Normandy as a guest of painter Gabriel Desrivières’ (1857–1927) family. He painted a number of landscapes, genre pieces and portraits there, among them a small-size canvas, The Gardener, in which the above-mentioned topics are combined. »Under the influence of direct contact with nature, Šubic realized that the flatulent history compositions, such as were produced in Parisian studios and with which he was overworked at the time, were in fact a sham, whereas true art can only be an expression of a direct artistic touch with natural authenticity.« (Stane Mikuž) Being aware of this, »Jurij Šubic was the first to introduce sunlight into our [Slovenian] art and conducted our painting to the degree which meant a starting point for a new art generation.« (France Stele) The small-size oil displays a charming, romantic scene in which a boy gardener prunes rose bushes. He stands on a path that ends with a wall, thus suggesting a feeling of a closed, safe space, even though the setting takes place outdoors. Above the figure and around him, lush late-spring greenery stretches; in the background a patch of the sky gleams. Quick brush strokes reveal the painter’s wish to present the event as carefully and exactly as possible, an event that is fleeting in its lifetime yet eternal in its content. It tells us that reality can also be experienced in an ethereal and romantic way. In the sphere of art we distinguish between romanticism and realism, which means between two artistic streams that are completely dissimilar from each other. Romanticism looks at the past and celebrates emotions, whereas realism puts an end to it and focuses on the present, trying to surpass the emotional charge of the romantic view. Everyday life can be gray and gloomy or bright and serene. When such a moment is painted, it seems that realism and romanticism have met – as in the case of the young gardener, who has captured a nostalgic impression in a moment of the painter’s daily life, his real world. Author Sara Müller 1 September – 5 October 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Jurij Šubic, The Gardener, 1882, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 575, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, November 2022 Restoration of a Painting by Francesco Fontebasso: St Anne Teaching Mary to Read Due to the poor legibility of the signature written on a stair in the lower right-hand part of the canvas, the painting had long been attributed to different Italian painters. Finally, art historian Matej Klemenčič, supported by archival studies in Venice, managed to identify the missing letters and read the signature properly, yielding the name of the Venetian painter of late Baroque, Francesco Fontebasso (1707–1769). The motif of Mary’s mother Anne teaching her daughter to read is not to be found anywhere else in Fontebasso’s oeuvre, so it is deemed unique in terms of his iconography. The present painting used to serve at the altarpiece in the chapel of the Škofja Loka (Bischoflack) castle, whereas after the Second World War it was moved to the Ursuline convent in the Ajmanov grad (Heimann Mansion/Ehrenau) at Sveti Duh near Škofja Loka. The semicircular topped oil painting is painted on extremely thin and sparsely woven canvas and it is surprising that no major damage has ever affected the painting’s delicate linen support. However, there is considerable damage to the paint layer on the central upper part of the painting, in the area where angels are presented. In the past, certain improvements were carried out on the painting but were made at a time when restoration profession was not as defined as it is nowadays and the quality of repairing artworks did not exceed the skill and expertise of local masters. We have decided to remove the improper reconstruction of the original layer and replace it with a more adequate one. The primary task of the restorers is to stabilize the work of art, therefore it is first conserved. It is true that people often connect the term »conserve« with culinary, but in the concrete case it refers to certain steps which slow down the decay process. After initial solidification and protection of paint layers, we under-pasted the thin original canvas with supportive canvas. We replaced the poorly functional static stretcher with a new, extensible one. The restoration treatment is not done in a restaurant (a dilemma about the term is not so rare) but in a restoration studio. We removed the temporary protection from the face of the painting, as well as surface dirt and the secondary varnish that had been applied in the course of a previous treatment. We managed to keep most of the original varnish. Great care and step-by-step advancement in restoration work is never enough, and particularly great caution must be exercised when removing old fillings, retouches and over-paintings. The fillings and reconstruction, which we have removed, covered not only the damaged area but also the neighbouring original layer. The subsequently applied paint that covers the original paint layer is called over-painting. The extensive reconstruction we are going to make on this important piece requires cooperation of nature-science, restoration and art history disciplines. In addition to the client’s wishes, the style of the realization also depends on the function of the work of art and the context of its presentation, the state of preservation of the original material, comparative visual materials – photographs – and, last but not least, the ethics and panting skill of the realizer. The studies made will be a visual basis for discussion and the upgrading of the image prior to the treatment of the original. Author Mihael Pirnat Jr. 3 November – 30 November 2022 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Francesco Fontebasso, St Anne Teaching Mary to Read, 1737, Ursuline Convent, Sv. Duh pri Škofji Loki, virtual reconstruction of imago detail, (photo © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, December 2022 The Nativity Scene of Christoph Steidl Porenta, Goldsmith and Silversmith Nativity scenes are a central symbol of Christmas, and making and setting them up kindles creative thinking and artistic creativity. Today, this field is very well developed: there is a permanent exhibition at the Museum of Nativity Scenes in Brezje, occasional nativity exhibitions are held every year in many Slovenian towns, there is an Association of Nativity Scene Lovers and the magazine Jaslice (Nativity Scenes) has been published, which has certainly helped to raise the quality of nativity-scene-making in Slovenia. Every year, the National Gallery of Slovenia mounts an exhibition of artistic nativity scenes by Slovenian architects, sculptors and painters who have in the past dealt with the iconographic theme of the birth of Jesus in various artistic ways, and the selection of the nativity scenes is based mainly on artistic quality and artistic originality. The question of which nativity scenes are artistic is a very complex one, the answers to which can be discerned at different levels, since nativity scenes have an artistic, an aesthetic and a spiritual dimension. The whole setting of the nativity scene is shaped by the figures and the landscape, but in the museum set-up the emphasis is not on the nativity backdrop but on the figures, which are an essential component of the nativity scene. They can also be placed independently and, through their artistic language, they elevate the aesthetic and the spirit of the Christmas holidays. The nativity scene for this year’s installation at the National Gallery was designed and produced by the goldsmith, silversmith and restorer Christoph Steidl Porenta (born in Munich in 1965), and marks the entry into the Jubilee Year of 2023, which commemorates the eight hundredth anniversary of the first nativity scene of St Francis of Assisi in Greccio, Italy. Tradition has it that the saint wanted to symbolically mark the feast day and on Christmas Eve in 1223, in a cave near Greccio, he set up a live nativity scene with a donkey, an ox and a statue of the infant Jesus to represent the event of his birth. During the midnight Mass, attended by religious and faithful, a mystical vision took place. Today, Greccio is home to a church and a convent with a nativity chapel, and St Francis of Assisi is considered to be the pioneer of the nativity scene, which is why Steidl Porenta’s nativity scene goes back to the eight hundred year old spiritual spring of the first nativity scene. The sculptural representation of the nativity scene or of the Holy Family can be seen in several of Christoph Steidl Porenta’s works, but there is always a miniature figure in silver that is integrated into a larger art piece. A particular achievement is the reliquary of St Francis of Assisi, which was installed this year in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Brezje, a complex work in terms of content, art and execution. The reliquary is in the shape of a tree and features miniature depictions of events in the saint’s life, including the first nativity scene. The nativity scene, which Steidl Porenta designed and produced for the exhibition at the National Gallery, is also a miniature in silver, which emphasises the intimacy of the Christmas event in a symbolic way. For this reason, he depicted only the main protagonists – Mary and the infant Jesus, St Joseph, the Three Magi and an angel. The Holy Family is placed in an illuminated circle, which represents the intimate circle of the family, the green enamel base replaces the moss from the traditional Slovenian nativity scene and is a colour symbol of rebirth, and outside the circle is the desert. Mary is breastfeeding the child and thus giving life, while Joseph is conceived in motion, as if he had come to see what was happening and thus draws attention to the miracle of birth. The angel is not depicted as a little putto, but as an archangel who not only announces but bows down to Jesus. The Three Magi represent the world and people from three continents who have brought the most precious things they have – gold, myrrh and frankincense. However, the artist did not include animals in the nativity scene, which are always present in traditional settings, as they do not seem to be essential in the context of the emphasised intimacy of the Christmas event. The nativity scene by Christoph Steidl Porenta for the exhibition at the National Gallery of Slovenia is a symbolic personal interpretation of the Christmas event and represents an achievement of artistic craftsmanship in the broad context of the artist’s versatile creativity. With these nativity scenes, he has enriched Slovenian nativity art with new approaches and linked it to the noble goldsmith tradition from his native Bavaria, which he has been continuing for three decades in his studio Zlato runo in Ljubljana. Author Andrej Doblehar 1 December 2022 – 1 February 2023 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Christoph Steidl Porenta, The Nativity Scene, 2022, zasebna last, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, June 2023 House Altar of the Annunciation: Provenance and Date of Creation As part of its presentation of older visual art in Slovenia, the National Gallery exhibits, among other objects, the House Altar of the Annunciation, a work by an unknown carver from the late 17th century. The piece is presented in the Exhibition Hall 2 of its Permanent Collection. The style of the art points to the 17th century: the strong upward momentum, the figures on the consoles with distinctly mannerist proportions, the lace ornamentation of the altar crown, the volute motifs on the sides of the central section and the small ornamental arrays (a rod motif, a diamond motif and an egg, in various combinations) which decorate the frame of the central section of the completely dematerialised altarpiece. The miniature Early Baroque altarpiece is a sophisticated piece of carving of Central-European origin, which was most likely primarily used for private devotion of a wealthy client. We are unlikely to find out the identity of this person. No unbroken provenance is recorded. We do know, however, that this house altar was part of the rich collection of antiquities of Baron Hans Karl Kometer (1850–1925), the former owner of the Buchenstein / Pukštajn (Bukovje) manor house, situated on the right bank of the Drava, not far downstream from Dravograd. The owner died without issue, so the estate and the manor house with all its inventory were inherited by his niece, Melita Feldmann (1881–1957), an American citizen, on condition that »nothing may be sold or given away from the castle for 25 years«. She and her husband moved from New York to Pukštajn, for which they had bold plans. However, a number of unfortunate business decisions led them into financial difficulties. The owner’s legal representative contacted the conservator general of the Drava Banovina, France Stele (1886–1972), and asked him to appraise the collection. In March 1931, Stele inspected the entire inventory and listed and photo-documented the most important objects; he also informed the Banovina administration about the probable public auction and the possibility of enriching the collections of the National Gallery and the Arts and Crafts Department of the National Museum with valuable and important objects from the Pukštajn collection. On 11 November 1931, the Feldmanns declared bankruptcy. Shortly afterwards, Ivan Zorman (1889–1969), then administrator of the National Gallery, carried out an appraisal; his official minutes (preserved by the National Gallery, NG D 706-1) reveal a rich and precious collection and the exceptional nature of individual pieces. From 8 to 17 August 1932, a public auction of the movable property of the Pukštajn mansion took place. At that time, Josip Mal (1884–1978), director of the National Museum in Ljubljana, succeeded in acquiring many of the important objects, with the help of the Chamber of Commerce, Crafts and Industry. Among them was the House Altar of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, listed in the valuation report under the number 135 and valued at 6,000 dinars. In the National Museum it was assigned an inventory number NM 10117. In the margins of the entry in the inventory book, a pencil note was later added: NG 514/46. This note refers to the protocol number of the document entitled List of sculptures transferred from the National Museum to the National Gallery for safekeeping, with permission of the Head of Section for Art and Museums, dated 5 December 1946, where under the number 52 we find inventory number 10117, with the statement ‘Altarpiece, wooden relief, polychrome’ next to it. The document was signed on 16 January 1947 by the acting director of the National Museum Jože Kastelic (1913–2003), and the director of the National Gallery Ivan Zorman. The National Gallery later included the house altarpiece in its art collection, specifically in its collection of sculpture, and assigned it the inventory number NG P 75. Author Mojca Jenko Translation Michel Mohor 1 June – 6 September 2023 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Central European Carver, House Altar of the Annunciation, (late 17th Century), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG P 75, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, September 2023 Spanish School, Three Bouquets of Flowers Timeless and fragrant, the bouquets are composed of flowers that do not bloom at the same time. In a mixed arrangement we find late-winter hollyhocks, spring daffodils and tulips, May lilies, lilies of the valley, peonies, June roses, carnations, dahlias and jasmine. In the bouquet on the left of the painting there are some flowers that achieved the depicted look with the help of the painter’s imagination. The type of bouquets, the shaping of the flowers, the presence of insects and birds all point to an inspiration from Italian floral still lifes of the first quarter of the 17th century. Despite the Italian source, the overall impression of the painting and some of the details suggest the Spanish school. Although the painter is unknown and the style is not sufficiently distinctive to be associated with any known painter, it can be seen that it is in many ways reminiscent of the still lifes of Juan van der Hamen y Léon (1596–1631) and Pedro de Camprobín (1605–1674). The still life stands out for its dramatic lighting and the detailed subjects painted. The artist’s confident use of chiaroscuro allows for powerful contrasts of light and dark, with darkness becoming the dominant feature of the painting, revealing the direct influence of the Tenebrist Baroque. The technique was developed to add drama and is common in Spanish Baroque paintings, and this still life presents formal characteristics that still correspond to the transition between the naturalism of the early 17th century and the full-blown Baroque of the second half of this century. The still life itself did not become an important genre of painting until the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when it appeared more or less simultaneously in the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. Particularly with the revolutionary works of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), painted objects became imbued with meaning, and their representation and arrangement the subject of serious artistic judgement. Caravaggio declared that it was as difficult to paint a still life as to paint figures. His famous still life from the late 16th century, in which he depicted fruit in a wicker basket in a naturalistic manner, aroused such admiration and imitation that at least one element, namely the wicker basket, appears regularly in his imitators from the Roman and Neapolitan schools of painting. Caravaggio is rightly considered the father of Roman still life, a genre in its infancy at the beginning of the 17th century, but far-reaching in its influence on the Neapolitan school. In the early 17th century, Caravaggio lived and worked briefly in Naples, then the second largest city in Europe after Paris. The Kingdom of Naples was at that time a Spanish colony, which allowed a direct exchange of the latest developments in painting. In Spain, Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560–1627), a contemporary of Caravaggio, painted naturalistically detailed images of fruit, vegetables and a few flowers in front of a completely black background in stone frames, with a surrealist touch to the whole composition. In a slightly different vein, the great artist Juan van der Hamen y Léon favoured subjects that suited the taste of his cosmopolitan clientele in the court circles of Madrid. He filled his compositions with exotic flowers, cakes and imported ceramic vessels and Venetian glass. His work is characterised by brilliant clarity of execution, purity of design and refined attention to detail. The painter’s greatest contribution to Spanish Baroque art was his departure from the established symmetrical still lifes in window frames to a new, asymmetrical format in which objects are painted on stone steps and pedestals of varying lengths and heights. Spain was still the leading power in Europe at this time and, because of its political and economic importance, was in constant contact with other European powers such as the Italian states, France and the Netherlands, resulting in direct exchange of contemporary trends in painting. In this environment, politically neutral still lifes developed rapidly in style and subject matter, as they were often commissioned by wealthy clients for the interior decoration of their mansions. Still lifes also made for excellent gifts. Author Jassmina Marijan 7 September – 4 October 2023 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Spanish School (?), Three Bouquets of Flowers, (1st half of the 17th Century), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3043, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, November 2023 Fran Klemenčič, Portrait of Dr Franc Derganc and Portrait of Heda Derganc In 2021, the National Gallery received a gift of two oil paintings, portraits of the couple Franc and Heda Derganc, by the painter Fran Klemenčič (1880–1961). For the husband’s portrait, the painter made use of a photograph taken in 1912, and it is likely that the female portrait was created in the same way, but no template could be found. Both are painted in a realistic manner, but with a more relaxed touch, typical of Klemenčič’s later works. He painted larger and much more ambitious portraits of the couple in 1910, the year of their marriage. He exhibited these splendid, salon-style paintings in 1911 at the Jakopič Pavilion, in a memorial exhibition marking the death of the painter Ivan Grohar (1867–1911). Dr. Franc Derganc (1877–1939) was a physician-surgeon and organiser of surgical projects in Ljubljana. Starting in Vienna, he received professional training from the most important European clinics, in order to implement his knowledge and innovations in the surgical department of the Ljubljana hospital. He started there in 1906 and became head of the department in 1920. Dr. Derganc was a thoughtful, broad-minded and involved man who fully conformed to the Hippocratic Oath and always put the patients and the profession first. He published medical writings and popular articles in various journals and newspapers, and helped found Zdravniški vestnik (Journal of Medicine), which he also edited in its first year of publication. As a poet, he walked alongside Slovenian modernism, he was friends with the writer Janez Trdina and the national awakener Janez Evangelist Krek, and he consistently and persistently defended his views in the cultural and political magazine Jug (The South), which he founded together with the historian, ethnologist and politician Dr. Niko Zupanič and the writer Ivan Lah. He also established himself as a philosophical writer, following the example of the ancient Babylonian priests, who blended medicine, science and philosophy. He formulated the idea of the Slovenian Acropolis, which was essentially a cultural programme, and called it The Academy. A society of Slovenian writers and artists. Later, the cultural workers realised these ideas in the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the National Gallery of Slovenia. He met his future wife Heda Tauber (1889–1974) at the Hotel Štrukelj (today’s City Hotel, formerly the Turist) in Ljubljana, when he came to treat a sick guest and she assisted him, holding a candle. Soon after their marriage, she and Franc started building a private sanatorium on Komenskega Street, which they named Emona, after the Roman outpost beneath contemporary Ljubljana (ancient remains were found on the site). The building was also home for the pair and their seven children. The official title of the sanatorium was as a hospital for internal and surgical procedures and a maternity ward. It was technically well equipped, with its own X-ray machine, single and double patient rooms and operating theatres. The sanatorium was run by Heda Derganc, since Dr. Derganc entered military service in 1914; World War I broke out shortly after the opening of the hospital. Dr. Derganc was enlisted until the end of the war. The couple was interested in and supportive of both literature and the fine arts. Ivan Cankar, Oton Župančič, Fran Saleški Finžgar, Izidor Cankar, Fran Tratnik, Hinko Smrekar and Rihard Jakopič, among others, were regular guests at their home. In 1939, Dr. Derganc died. Heda Derganc and her sons continued to run the Emona Sanatorium during the difficult years of World War II. In fact, the sanatorium cooperated with the Resistance Movement and Derganc sons, all doctors, were among the first to join the organisation. Author Alenka Simončič 9 November – 6 December 2023 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Fran Klemenčič, Dr Franc Derganc, (after 1912), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3715, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Fran Klemenčič, Hedvika (Heda) Derganc, née Tauber, (after 1912), National Gallery of Slovenia, NG S 3716, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) Revelations, December 2023 New Year Greeting Cards: Pogačnik’s Collection of Artists’ New Year Greeting Cards The 2008 bequest of Marjan Pogačnik (1920–2012) to the National Gallery of Slovenia contains among other things a collection of over four hundred greeting cards sent to him by his Yugoslav colleagues and artists from abroad. The collection has a tremendous potential for amplification and is a symptom of printmaking culture formed in Slovenia in the second half of the 20th century. Its originator was the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts that gave birth to the so-called Printmaking School of Ljubljana. The notion of the School exceeds the narrow stable of artists sharpening their expertise in the Paris studios of Johnny Friedlaender (1912–1992) and Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988). The Biennial was a mediator of information on up-to-date print production of the world, which stimulated domestic creativity. Printmaking output of Ljubljana and Yugoslavia as a whole reached an extraordinary standard in various printmaking techniques. The idea of an artist’s greeting card is not something entirely new. Western culture around 1900 produced an original postcard, which often carried a humorously conceived original and unique visual message on its face side, using the form of caricature as one of most frequently applied tools. The Munich painter Richard Graef (1879–1945), among others, communicated with Matej Sternen (1870–1949) in this manner, as well as members of the ‘Vesna’ group of Slovenian artists in Vienna, who shared their visual puns and scintillations through original postcards. At the time, illustrated postcards were generously available, not just as greeting cards, but also tokens of fundraising (Society of Sts Cyril and Methodius for Slovenian schools), war propaganda, aid to the refugees and war orphans, triggered by commercial accessibility of colour printing. The artist’s postcard remained the means of intimate communication within artists’ communities and other participants in the growing system of art institutions. The renaissance of the artist’s greeting card occurred within the Printmaking School of Ljubljana in the second half of the 20th century. It was not regionally restricted. The International Print Biennial of Ljubljana was a Yugoslav national project that gave broad prestige to the country. Along with the Slovenian artists, other important printmakers rose from the rest of the federal republics, such as the students of the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design Đevad Hozo, Mersad Berber and Peter Waldegg, or those independent from the Ljubljana centre: Safet Zec, Ivan Picelj, Miro Šutej, Ante Kuduz and others. Artist’s greeting card belongs to the genre of small print that was cultivated also by the Exlibris Sloveniae Society. Its function remained unchanged but it thrived now in the advanced system of art institutions and art market. Printmaking techniques offered a suitable medium for its expansion. They fetched a sufficient quantity for the exclusive audiences. Artist’s greeting card promoted the recent production of its maker with his colleagues, friends, and particularly with decision makers in charge of exhibition programming and distribution of public and sponsored funds. Art institutions made use of the artist’s print as well – International Print Biennial, Museum of Modern Art, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, nascent private art galleries and many others. Unfortunately, those small prints usually ended up framed on walls. An important aspect of Pogačnik’s Collection provide envelopes – with e.g. calligraphically written out address by Lucijan Bratuš (born 1949), the velin foliculi as protective sheets inscribed with greetings by Vladimir Makuc (1925–2016), drawing additions on commercial printed reproductions by France Mihelič (1907–1998), etc. Artist’s greeting card is therefore a symptom of visual culture and social practice that marked groups of intimately and through business connected members of cultural elite of a society that wanted to be egalitarian and therefore sought its prestige in symbolic objects and gestures. Author Andrej Smrekar 7 December 2023 – 3 January 2024 National Gallery of Slovenia Prešernova 24 Ljubljana Bogdan Borčić, Season’s Greetings 1976, 1975, National Gallery of Slovenia, NG G 10493, (photo Janko Dermastja, © National Gallery of Slovenia) The Decade of Revelations Original title: Desetletje Odstiranj Published by National Gallery of Slovenia Represented by Barbara Jaki Texts by Mateja Breščak, Tina Buh, Andrej Doblehar, Andrej Hirci, Mojca Jenko, Alenka Klemenc, Jassmina Marijan, Katra Meke, Michel Mohor, Sara Müller, Mihael Pirnat Jr., Kristina Preininger, Erica Sartori, Alenka Simončič, Andrej Smrekar, Ferdinand Šerbelj, Simona Škorja, Martina Vuga, Gojko Zupan Foreword Barbara Jaki Editor Nataša Ciber Translation Alenka Klemenc, Michel Mohor, Andrej Smrekar Photographs Avgust Berthold, Mateja Breščak, Janko Dermastja, Andrej Hirci, Ivan Kotar, Kristina Preininger, Bojan Rihtaršič, Bojan Salaj, Carlo Sclauzero, Fran Vesel, Archive of National Gallery of Slovenia, Lower Carniola Museum in Novo mesto, National and University Library, internet and printed sources Illustrations Tonka Mohar, Michel Mohor, Mihael Pirnat Jr. Book cover Kristina Kurent Book design Zveza Modro-bela ptica Electronic book First electronic edition Available format: EPUB Access (URL): https://www.ng-slo.si/ © National Gallery of Slovenia and the authors, 2024 Supported by Free publication Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani COBISS.SI-ID 219900675 ISBN 978-961-7209-13-6 (ePUB)