Church in Butsiv (K. W. Kielisinski's Album)

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Jan Konstanty Żupański issued "Kielisiński's Album", gathering the artist's scattered works, most of which had remained unpublished during his lifetime.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 monument of folk sacred architecture – a wooden Catholic church with a freestanding bell tower, surrounded by a fence and tall deciduous trees.
In the foreground runs a rural dirt road lined with grass. In the background, silhouettes of distant trees and village buildings can be discerned.
The graphic sheet is distinguished by its precise and dense etched line.

Beneath the image, the artist's inscriptions read: on the left – "KWK. rys. z n. 1836." [Drawn from nature by KWK. 1836]; and on the right – "r. aqf. 1838 2 Marca" [Executed in etching. 2 March 1838] / below – illegible.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery