Minerva amidst Muses
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Malarstwo
Hendrick van Balen (?)
Low Countries, Antwerp (?)
1st quarter of 17th century
oil on linden board (?)
69 x 209 cm
Wil.1759
Apparently, this is only one of many excellent paintings executed by the Low Countries master. The board, in the shape of an elongated rectangle, fulfilled the function not only of a work of art but was also the top of a musical instrument, which, according to tradition, could have belonged to Queen Maria Kazimiera. The legend associated with it, recorded by Stanisław Kostka Potocki on a piece of paper, which was destroyed, although fortunately the text was cited in literature, claimed that after Jan III set off for Vienna, Eleanor Magdalena Wittelsbach, the wife of Emperor Leopold I, offered Maria Kazimiera an instrument, which Potocki described as a harpsichord.
It featured an inscription expressing the wish "that the Queen should compensate the absence of her beloved Knight by her uncommon talent for music, and upon his return accompany triumphant songs". The shape and size of this "top" correspond to another musical instrument - a virginal, popular in the sixteenth-seventeenth century. The main centre of its production was Antwerp, where Hendricks van Balen, to whom the painting is attributed, was active.
Krystyna Gutowska-Dudek
Polecane
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