Drawings of Baptismal Fonts and Stoups in the Inventory of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Work

Abstract

During the summer months of 1888 and 1889, Stanisław Wyspiański undertook two scientific and artistic excursions, led by Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, devoted to research and drawing inventories of the monuments he encountered. The first of the trips, a two-week one, covered the Opoczno area, while the second – much longer, lasting forty-two days – focused on the monuments of the area of Nowy Sącz, Gorlice, Grybów, and Tarnów. Among the hundreds of field sketches brought to Kraków by Stanisław Wyspiański, there is an extremely valuable collection of inventory drawings of antique baptismal fonts and stoups, mostly of stone, dating back to the 15^th and 16^th centuries. These drawings were then used in a small part in the publications of the Kraków monuments conservator Stanisław Tomkowicz, the initiator of both tours, the author of the pioneering inventories of monuments in his conservatorial district (the poviats of Krosno, Jasiel, Nowy Sącz and Limanowa) and a very early monographic article devoted to baptismal fonts from the vicinity of Nowy Sącz and Gorlice. As a result of the complicated fate that befell Wyspiański’s field sketchbooks in the twentieth century, his drawings of 22 baptismal fonts and 14 stoups were not published in print until more than 130 years after they were made. This monographic text sums up the collected knowledge about these drawings, revealing the background of their belated reception in Polish art history.