Our Lady of Berdyczów

The Wilanów collection of prints contains to this day a couple of plates originating from a large work entitled Album de Wilna, published in series and fascicules in years 1845-1875. Each contained a set of engravings, lithographs and chromolithographs, all dedicated to national topics in line with the author’s and publisher’s definition. As such, in its topics and spirit the Vilnius Album reflected the most significant idea prevailing in the Polish art of the post-partition period, namely passing on to future generations priceless monuments of the past and promoting the native culture. The Album was published with utmost care and attention. Wilczyński had the drawings made by most eminent contemporary painters and graphic artists. The printing was executed in the best Paris workshops specializing in etching and lithography. The discussed chromolithograph (or colour lithograph) represents the miraculous image of Our Lady of Berdyczów. Alongside with Częstochowa and the Gates of Dawn in Vilnius, Berdyczów was one of the three largest Marian sanctuaries on the territory of the former Republic of Poland. A legend has it that the founder of the first church and the Carmelite monastery in Berdyczów, the governor of Kiev Janusz Tyszkiewicz, was taken prisoner by the Turks in 1627. While in captivity, he pledged to fund a church dedicated to Our Lady should he be released alive. He did survive and consequently in 1634 Carmelites arrived in Berdyczów and looked after the place until the Bolshevik revolution. The original miraculous painting, crowned in1756, went missing in 1941, probably burnt in the great fire that consumed a significant part of the monastery and the church complex. This fact renders the existing reproductions of the painting, including the one preserved in Wilanów, only the more valuable.