Name of Object:

St. Barbara

Location:

Governor’s Palace, Brno, Moravia, Czech Republic

Holding Museum:

Moravian Gallery, Brno

 About Moravian Gallery, Brno , Governor’s Palace, Brno

Current Owner:

Moravian Gallery, Brno

Date of Object:

c. 1680

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Michael Leopold Willmann (1630, Königsberg-1706 , Lubiaz)

Museum Inventory Number:

A 621

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

h: 120.5 cm; w: 104.4 cm

Provenance:

Collection of Baron Astfeld

Type of object:

Painting

Place of production:

Moravia

Description:

This half-figure of a woman holding a palm frond suggests a Christian martyr; the chalice, communion wafer, sword and tower in the background help identify her as St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners, artillerymen, gunsmiths and all who work with explosives. Legend has it that her father, a pagan nobleman, had a tower erected to imprison his daughter and discourage prospective suitors. The tower had only two windows. In her father’s absence, Barbara persuaded workers to add a third window. She also had a priest visit in secret and baptise her. When her father returned, Barbara explained that the three windows symbolised the Holy Trinity illuminating her soul. The father turned her over to the Roman authorities. When Barbara refused to abandon her faith, she was tortured and finally decapitated.
The monochrome colour scheme, light contrasts and the artist’s original handwriting hint at inspiration by Dutch and Flemish 17th-century painting. The smoothly arched face contrasts with the relaxed rendering of the drapery. The portrait features of the saint suggest an interest in individual psychology, and embody a crypto-portrait of the artist’s wife.
Willmann was probably apprenticed to his father’s workshop before leaving for the Netherlands. It has been maintained that he was a direct student of Rembrandt; he certainly came into contact with Rembrandt’s art and was allegedly in touch with Jacob de Backer, a student of Rembrandt, as well as with a circle of landscape artists around Jacob van Ruisdael. In Antwerp, he became acquainted with the work of Rubens and Van Dyck. The painter later moved to Breslau where his work attracted the interest of the Cistercian abbot of the Lubiaz monastery. The artist joined his service and settled in Lubiaz for good, painting for the abbey and other monasteries in Bohemia and Moravia. His stay was only broken by a trip to the Elector’s court in Berlin, where he was appointed court painter.

The monochrome colour scheme, light contrasts and the artist’s handwriting hint at inspiration by Dutch and Flemish 17th-century painting. The smoothly arched face contrasts with the relaxed rendering of the drapery. The portrait features of the saint embody a crypto-portrait of the artist’s wife.

How date and origin were established:

The painting is a traditional ascription confirmed by style analysis, particularly in comparison with a cycle of saints from Rajhrad, near Brno.

How Object was obtained:

The picture was acquired for the collections in 1938, through a purchase from private property in Bratislava. The name B. Astfeld on the reverse reveals further provenance: he was son of Baron J. Astfeld, who loaned the picture to the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts, Prague in 1797.

Selected bibliography:

Michal Šroněk, Barokní malířství 17. století v Čechách, in Dějiny českého výtvarného umění II/1, Prague, 1989, p. 348.
Antonín Jirka, Středoevropské malířství 1600–1730 z moravských sbírek, Zlín, 1993, p. 38, cat. 69.

Citation of this web page:

Zora Wörgötter "St. Barbara" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;cz;Mus11;2;en

Prepared by: Zora WörgötterZora Wörgötter

SURNAME: Wörgötter
NAME: Zora

AFFILIATION: Moravian Gallery in Brno

TITLE: Museum Curator and Local Co-ordinator

CV:
Zora Wörgötter studied Applied Painting at the Secondary School of Applied Arts, Video Art (Faculty of Fine Arts) at the University of Technology in Brno and Art History and Ethnology (Faculty of Arts) at Masaryk University, Brno. She has worked at the Moravian Gallery since 1997 and was curator of the Ancient Art Collection up until 2008. Specialising in Dutch and Central European painting of the 17th and 18th centuries, she has participated in the preparation of several exhibitions, catalogues and research projects in the Czech Republic and abroad, and published in the Moravian Gallery Bulletin, Opuscula historiae artium, and other journals. She is co-ordinator of the Art History Database www.ahice.net for the Czech Republic.
Copyedited by: Jiří KroupaJiří Kroupa

SURNAME: Kroupa
NAME: Jiří

AFFILIATION: Department of the History of Art (Faculty of Arts) Masaryk
University, Brno

TITLE: Professor

CV:
Professor Jiří Kroupa studied Art History, History and Sociology Masaryk University, Brno. He was a curator at the Kroměříž Museum and the Moravian Gallery in Brno before joining the staff at Masaryk University in 1988 (Head of the Department 1992–2002; Professor 1999 to present). His particular fields of interest are in the history of architecture, 18th-century cultural history and the methodology of art history. His long list of publications includes an edition on the architect Franz Anton Grimm and an essay “The alchemy of happiness: the Enlightenment in the Moravian context”. He was contributing editor for the volume Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670–1790 (2002).
Translation by: Irma Charvátová
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: CZ 03