Joseph Engerth’s painting ‘Interior of the Church in Żółkiew’

Żółkiewski’s intention was to erect not only a family mausoleum, but also a kind of pantheon of chivalric fame, as reflected in the carved frieze adorning the building’s façades with motifs of panoplies, bukranions and figures of knights. To commemorate one of his greatest successes, the hetman also commissioned a huge composition depicting the victory in the battle against the Russian-Swedish forces at Kłuszyn. The oil painting was most likely executed by the Lviv-based painter Szymon Boguszowicz.

Several decades later, the next owner of the Żółkiew estate – King Jan III Sobieski, the hetman’s great-grandson – expanded this military-themed propaganda programme by commissioning three further scenes to be placed on the church walls: first, the Battle of Chocim, painted by Andreas Stech, and a few years later, the Battle of Vienna and the Battle of Parkany, which he commissioned his court painter, Martin Altomonte, to paint. In this way, a unique collection of battle paintings – not only on a Polish scale – emerged within the Żółkiew church, featuring complex ideological themes celebrating the might of the Polish army and its heroic commanders.

After the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it remained a precious reminder of past splendour, but the economic crisis that struck the town towards the end of the 18th century and the auctioning off of the Sobieski family’s estate meant that, deprived of the patronage of the powerful family, the church in Żółkiew, along with the works of art housed within it, began to fall into disrepair.

By the early nineteenth century, the condition of the battle scenes from the church in Żółkiew was appalling – according to descriptions, the frames had partially fallen apart, the canvases were being damaged by insects and torn, leading to the paint layer flaking off. The painting depicting the Battle of Chocim was reportedly in the worst condition – ‘it was half torn and tattered’. In 1825, a decision was taken on the necessity of carrying out their restoration, for which funds were provided by the Galician Estates. Joseph Engerth, a painter of German origin who had settled in Lviv two years earlier, was chosen to carry out this task.

At the time, he was not only an experienced artist – probably in his fifties – but also a figure of authority, owing to his previous role as court painter to Prince Ferdinand von Anhalt-Köthen in Pszczyna. As an artist, he specialised in portraits, whilst also producing religious paintings and smaller genre scenes. There are no records of his earlier work in the field of conserving historical art, but it is also likely that there were no professionals in Lviv at that time specialising in this kind of work. It may well have been this lack of experience that led to problems with the execution of the task entrusted to him, the results of which were assessed very critically in the decades that followed.

It was reported that Engerth received several thousand Rhine guilders for this commission—a very substantial sum at the time—but that he carried it out ineptly. As early as 1850, in his *Dictionary of Painters*, Edward Rastawiecki noted that ‘due to improper mounting, these paintings show signs of decay, which, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy these monuments so valuable to art and national history’ (E. Rastawiecki, *Dictionary of Polish Painters and Foreign Painters Settled in Poland or Temporarily Residing There*, vol. 1, Warsaw 1850, p. 160).

To be honest, although Engerth later completed several more prestigious commissions in Lviv (for example, he painted a portrait of Francis I, used in 1827 during the city’s official celebrations of the Emperor’s birthday, and, commissioned by the GreekGreek Catholic Metropolitan of Lviv, the painting *Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter for the Church of St Jura*), it is, unfortunately, the botched conservation efforts on the Żółkiew battle scenes that have most firmly lodged themselves in the memory of posterity. As has the fact that, in search of a livelihood amidst the harsh realities of Galician cultural life, he undertook the painting of rooms and even, it is said, shop signs. He remained in Lviv for the rest of his life. He died in 1831 during a cholera epidemic.

However, Joseph Engerth was connected to the parish church in Żółkiew and the battle paintings housed there in yet another way. He painted a picture depicting the interior of this church in the style of Dutch ‘kerkinterieurs’. The wide perspective, captured from a vantage point situated in the nave, allowed the viewer to take in the space where the chancel and transept meet, where the famous historical paintings were displayed. On the walls of the transept, two compositions by Altomonte are clearly visible (though not in their entirety): on the north side – The Battle of Parkany; on the south side – The Battle of Vienna. They are rendered in considerable detail and are easily recognisable, although certain distortions can be discerned in the finer details of the compositions.

The two remaining battle scenes, hung in the chancel, are far less clear due to the necessary use of foreshortening, but they can still be identified: on the north wall is the Battle of Kłuszyn, and opposite it – the Battle of Chocim. In the background, one can see the late-Baroque high altar and, on either side of it, the tombs of the Żółkiewski family. The meticulously rendered interior of the church bears witness to the unprecedented historical significance already attributed to the Żółkiew parish church in Engerth’s time. Within this sacred space, the monumental battle scenes take on an even stronger panegyric dimension.

The effect they had on viewers was, moreover, also immortalised by the painter: in front of the painting depicting the skirmish at Parkany, a group of onlookers can be seen gazing intently at it. Two men in elegant attire, accompanied by a monk, are examining the work, even pointing out certain details with their hands. In doing so, Engerth directs the viewer’s attention to Altomonte’s work, emphasising its significance, whilst also indirectly praising the results of his own efforts, which led to its restoration. To enliven the composition, the artist has additionally introduced staffage typical of the genre of church interiors, featuring conventional figures of people at prayer or beggars waiting for alms. In doing so, he adhered to the traditional formula that had prevailed in European painting since the 17th century.

Today, *The Interior of the Church in Żółkiew* is all the more valuable as it constitutes iconographic material documenting the church’s original furnishings, in accordance with King Jan III Sobieski’s vision – furnishings which, unfortunately, are no longer displayed in this way. Four enormous battle scenes hung in the parish church until as late as 1972, but in the church—which had been converted into a warehouse after the war—they were gradually falling into disrepair. Consequently, the then director of the Lviv Picture Gallery, Borys Woźnicki, decided to safeguard them and transport them to the museum’s branch in Olesko, although, due to their monumental size, they could not be displayed in their entirety. In 2011, a Polish-Ukrainian conservation team led by Paweł Sadlej carried out the restoration of two of Altomonte’s canvases. For the time being, however, it has not been possible to carry out the project originally envisaged to reinstall them inside the restored church.

Location: Lviv National Art Gallery, Lviv