Barbara Radziwiłł

Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, ‘Album of Vilnius’.

The Album de Vilna edited by Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, along with pictures of other famous figures, included a lithograph of Barbara Radziwiłł based on the picture in the Radziwiłł family’s portrait gallery at Nesvizh, or at least based on an engraved copy. This work became popular, and facilitated the spread of the legend of the Queen’s beauty, although in the first half of the 19th century another portrait circulated, engraved by Pierre Antonio Branche and based on the portrait by Joseph Kurowski. That was published by Leonard Chodźko in the first volume of his La Pologne historique, littéraire, monumentale et pittoresque ... (Paris, 1835–1836). The portrait from the Nesvizh portrait gallery is known to have been more popular than Branche’s engraving, in which Barbara wears a beret instead of a crown. When the Lithuanian stage designer Janina Malinauskaitė was creating Barbara’s costume in 1972 for the actress Rūta Staliliūnaitė, who was playing the leading role in a production by Jonas Jurašas of Barbora Radvilaitė at Kaunas Drama Theatre, based on the play by Juozas Grušas, she modelled the costume on the portrait in the Nesvizh gallery, as it was represented so clearly in the lithograph by Grenier.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, RES PUBLICA (2018). Compiler and author Rūta Janonienė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius

Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, ‘Album of Vilnius’.

The Album de Vilna edited by Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, along with pictures of other famous figures, included a lithograph of Barbara Radziwiłł based on the picture in the Radziwiłł family’s portrait gallery at Nesvizh, or at least based on an engraved copy. This work became popular, and facilitated the spread of the legend of the Queen’s beauty, although in the first half of the 19th century another portrait circulated, engraved by Pierre Antonio Branche and based on the portrait by Joseph Kurowski. That was published by Leonard Chodźko in the first volume of his La Pologne historique, littéraire, monumentale et pittoresque ... (Paris, 1835–1836). The portrait from the Nesvizh portrait gallery is known to have been more popular than Branche’s engraving, in which Barbara wears a beret instead of a crown. When the Lithuanian stage designer Janina Malinauskaitė was creating Barbara’s costume in 1972 for the actress Rūta Staliliūnaitė, who was playing the leading role in a production by Jonas Jurašas of Barbora Radvilaitė at Kaunas Drama Theatre, based on the play by Juozas Grušas, she modelled the costume on the portrait in the Nesvizh gallery, as it was represented so clearly in the lithograph by Grenier.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, RES PUBLICA (2018). Compiler and author Rūta Janonienė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius