Portret Aleksandra Szembeka - budowa obrazu, historia, konserwacja

The portrait was handed over for conservation undated, and the only information which gave rise to serious doubts as to its veracity, was found on the frame: „Aleksander Szembek, the master o f the hunt o f Łęczyca, a n d first lord o f Siemianice'. In the nineteenth contury, the composition was completely repainted using the oilresin technique, and torn, with considerable losses in the area of the face which were temporarily covered with tempera. The painting was cleaned, and initially glued together. The deformations of the canvas around the rip were straightened with moisture in a climatic chamber and dried on a vaccuum table. The nineteenth-century additions were removed, and gaps in the primer and painting layer were replenished. The conservation made it possible to establish that the portrait really does depict Aleksander Szembek (1675- 1734), and that it was executed around 1720. Up to World War II, it was kept in the palace in Siemianice, and during the war it was lost. In 1984 it was purchased, through the intermediary of DESA, by the Museum in Olsztyn. Archival photographs of the interior of the palace served as a basis for the reconstruction of the frame. Finally, a tombstone of Aleksander and his coffin portrait were found in a church in Wieluń. The later painting is three times as small, and a more up-to-date copy of the original. The arrangement of the clothes and arm our are identical but the face is that of a bald man, some 15 years older.