Boys with a Nativity Scene (K. W. Kielisinski's Album)
Kajetan Kielisinski
Basic information
- ID
- Г-IV-1059_11
- Author
- Kajetan Kielisinski
- Name
- Boys with a Nativity Scene (K. W. Kielisinski's Album)
- Technique
- etching
- Material
- paper
- Dimensions
- 27.5 x 35.3 cm (height x width)
Additionally
- Type
- graphic art
- Genre
- genre art
- Provenance
- Transferred by the Lviv State Republican Historical Museum, 1951
Information about author
Object description
Kajetan Kielisiński created numerous etchings and drawings dedicated to folklore, the life of Polish villages and towns, historical monuments, and landscapes. In 1853, the Poznań publisher Jan Konstanty Żupański issued "Kielisiński's Album", gathering the artist's scattered works, most of which had remained unpublished during his lifetime. Two years later, in 1855, Żupański released a supplementary volume to complement the previous edition, which included etchings depicting coins and seals, figures in historical costumes, alongside rural and urban landscapes.
The presented etching belongs to the graphic sheets published within this 1855 supplement.
The sheet depicts a genre scene – a school puppet theatre from the early 19th century. In the centre of the composition is a mobile vertep (nativity puppet theatre) box, draped with fabric to the floor. On either side stand six schoolchildren staged in a Christmas performance. The shopka (nativity scene) is constructed as an architectural structure with two side towers and a central niche beneath a thatched roof, housing the Holy Family.
On the stage in front of the towers, puppet characters are positioned: on the left – the figure of a warrior with a raised sabre; on the right – a character in royal attire.
The action takes place in a darkened room. The sole light source is a rectangular lantern held by one of the boys standing in the foreground on the left.
The composition is distinguished by its ethnographic accuracy in rendering the details of the characters' clothing. Through dense cross-hatching, Kielisiński masterfully captures the atmosphere of the nativity play in the flickering light of the lantern.
The presented etching belongs to the graphic sheets published within this 1855 supplement.
The sheet depicts a genre scene – a school puppet theatre from the early 19th century. In the centre of the composition is a mobile vertep (nativity puppet theatre) box, draped with fabric to the floor. On either side stand six schoolchildren staged in a Christmas performance. The shopka (nativity scene) is constructed as an architectural structure with two side towers and a central niche beneath a thatched roof, housing the Holy Family.
On the stage in front of the towers, puppet characters are positioned: on the left – the figure of a warrior with a raised sabre; on the right – a character in royal attire.
The action takes place in a darkened room. The sole light source is a rectangular lantern held by one of the boys standing in the foreground on the left.
The composition is distinguished by its ethnographic accuracy in rendering the details of the characters' clothing. Through dense cross-hatching, Kielisiński masterfully captures the atmosphere of the nativity play in the flickering light of the lantern.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery
