11 November 2022 – 29 January 2023
Curators of the exhibition: Joanna Kurbiel, Arkadiusz Dobrzyniecki
The exhibition is dedicated to the collection of devotional graphic art created and studied by Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB from the Benedictine Abbey in Krzeszów.
The prints originate from European workshops, mainly in Germany, Austria and Czechia, and in part also from Italy, France and Poland, and were stamped in the 18th and 19th centuries in small printworks, often in monasteries, and distributed mostly among pilgrims at fairs and open-air markets, also by itinerant salesmen.
The collection comprising nearly 14 thousand prints was added to the then collection of the Ethnographic Museum in 1955 and showcases diverse printing techniques – mainly copperplate and steelplate engravings, some of them coloured by hand. Copies were made not just on paper, also on silk, etc., and unlike the mass produced copperplate and steelplate prints, these are unique, minute works of art. Another interesting part of the collection comprises the so-called ‘monastic handicrafts’ – pictures made by nuns using paper, fabrics and decorative haberdashery.