The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Cross and St. Bartholomew is a late Gothic church built in the first half of the 15th century. It was then that Andrzej Solecki of Krechowice began decorating the entire interior with a new late Baroque polychrome.

Work carried out in 2019

In 2019. POLONIKA Institute financed the technical conservation of the 18th-century paintings by Antoni Solecki located in the St Anne's Chapel. The work consisted of cleaning the vault and walls of repainting, underpainting the plasterwork and protecting it from further degradation.

Executor: Independence Foundation

Work carried out in 2021.

The northern chapel, to be conserved in 2021, was added to the body of the church in the 18th century. Its painting decoration, originally covering all the walls of the room, was created by Andrzej (Antoni) Solecki. The idea was to carry out a stage of technical conservation of the polychrome.

As a result of the work carried out, secondary layers in the form of plaster layers and paint coatings were removed. It was possible to uncover the Late Baroque polychrome, which is relatively complete on the eastern wall (illusionist altar with figures of saints), while on the northern and western walls it is preserved only in the central zone, while the upper parts are preserved in fragments, while the lower parts have extensive losses. On the northern wall, relics of the images of Saints Cyril and Methodius are visible, with an illusionistic window frame in the upper part and decoration in the form of rustication and balustrade and an inscription on the western wall. Only relics of earlier plaster and painting layers were found on the vault. In the course of conservation, thick secondary plaster coatings were removed from the vault ribs, which distorted their form.

The entire wall and vault surfaces were disinfected, the disintegrated and detached original plaster was consolidated and glued to the substrate, and the edges of the defects were protected with lime-sand bands. The polychrome in areas showing weakness was consolidated and then cleaned of damping and staining.

The scope of this year's works financed from the POLONIK Institute's budget concerned the polychromy of the northern wall and the vault, with a total area of 133.97 m2 , as well as conducting research into the state of preservation of the plastering and the polychromy. The work on the polychrome of the eastern and western walls was carried out under a grant from the Programme of the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport "Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad".

Executor: Restauro Sp. z o.o.

Works carried out in 2022.

Laser scanning of the site was carried out. This is the most effective and precise method of inventory, which allows a large amount of data to be obtained with high accuracy.

The formal call of the church is: the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Cross and St Bartholomew.

Conservation work carried out between 2019 and 2022, Conservation Programme, Polonica Institute