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Saint Elizabeth

Johann (Jan) Pfister

Saint Elizabeth ico mark
Basic information
ID
С-I-901
Author
Johann (Jan) Pfister
Name
Saint Elizabeth
Date of creation
1630s
Technique
carving
Material
wood
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm)
135 x 40 x 18
Additionally
Type
sculpture 3D
Genre
religious
Provenance
Expedition to the Ternopil region
Information about author
Author
Johann (Jan) Pfister
Artist's lifetime
1573–1640/1642
Country
Biography
Johann (Jan) Pfister (Jan Hanusz-Snycerz) – a sculptor of German origin, was born in 1573 in the city of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) into the family of the painter and sculptor Georg Pfister. He studied under master craftsmen from the Netherlands and Germany (Hans Fleiser, Friedrich Gross, Gerhardt Hendrik). Pfister is considered the most outstanding sculptor of the turn of the 16th–17th centuries who worked in the territories of present-day Ukraine and Poland. He worked predominantly in marble and alabaster, and less frequently in wood. He executed his finest works in Lviv, Berezhany, and Tarnów.
Starting from 1615, commissioned by Adam Hieronim Sieniawski, he began working in Berezhany on the tomb monuments of the noble Sieniawski family: Adam Hieronim and his three sons – Aleksander, Mikołaj, and Prokop. He led a woodcarving school in the town. Working as the court sculptor to the Sieniawskis, he carved altar compositions in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Bishche in the Ternopil region, which also belonged to the family. The master worked on the decoration of the altar during the 1630s. Pfister proved himself a highly professional artist who took his first creative steps under the influence of German-Netherlandish Mannerism.
Object description
The sculpture of St. Elizabeth, created in the 1630s, comes from the altar composition of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Bishche, Ternopil region; it was performed in the last period of Johann Pfister's life. The altar itself did not survive; however, several separate sculptures remained. The figure of St. Elizabeth is characterised by Mannerism, which is manifested in the excessively elongated proportions of the body, in grace and capricious foreshortening of the figure, as well as in the aristocratic position of the head with a slight tilt to a slightly lowered shoulder. A small crown with a tiara is on the head of the holy woman; soft hair waves fall to her shoulders. The sculptor skilfully carved the woman's left hand; the right one is lost. The horizontal line of the belt crosses the straight and vertical folds of Elizabeth's clothing, emphasising the frontality of the figure. An aristocratic elongated face with a straight nose, almond-shaped eyes, and small lips are specific features of the sculptor's style. The image of St. Elizabeth resembles Elzbieta Sieniawska, one of the founders of the church.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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