Triptych from the Jan Matejko House. New observations.

Abstract

Triptych from the Jan Matejko House. New observations.

One of the most outstanding works of Gothic panel painting in Lesser Poland was the subject of intensive interdisciplinary research in the two past decades in the National Museum of Krakow. There were two goals: recognizing the artistic techniques used on the obverse side of the Triptych and searching for the remains of the painting layer on the (supposedly undecorated) reverse side. The present communication is limited to the latter scope.

Infrared photography revealed the remains of a figural scene, which we hypothetically reconstructed in drawings as the Annunciation. The use of a large-area XRF scanner fully confirmed this assumption. As a consequence, our view on the functional context of the Triptych changed: it could not be a "Hausaltärchen" serving private devotion, but an epitaph retable, exposed on the altar in the church interior and being subject to the liturgical rhythm of opening and closing the wings. The success of this project should encourage the use of XRF scanning to examine other panel paintings that have been damaged to such an extent that it is impossible to identify the subject matter of the representations by the sense of sight.