Painting Series The Life of St. Augustine

Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis

Abstract

The subject of the article is a yet unexplored series of paintings, The Life of St. Augustine. The author attributes the series and proposes a hypothesis about the patron who commissioned it. Through inscriptions complementing the images, the research successfully identifies the graphic prototypes, depicted scenes, and their written sources, offering a systematic exploration of the iconography.

Originally comprising ten paintings, four of the series (No. 2, 3, 8, 10) are currently housed in the Museum of the Kaunas Archdiocese. Another (No. 7) resides in a private collection, No. 9 vanished by the early 20th century, and the whereabouts of the remaining four are unknown. Acquired by the Museum of the Kaunas Archdiocese in 2000 from the Kaunas Priest Seminary, the series had been associated with the seminary since at least the beginning of the 20th century. Archival photos unveil that the paintings of the series adorned the northern wall in the Grand Auditorium of the Samogitian Priest Seminary during the first half of the 20th century. Although this impressive space, established in 1895 on the former site of the northern gallery of the Bernardine cloister, was captured many times in archival photographs, it was demolished in 1957. The article, for the first time, pinpoints the precise location and transformation of this auditorium, recorded in archival photographs along with the painting series.

The article reveals that the painting series was created following a set of 28 engravings produced in Antoine Bonenfant’s Parisian printing house between 1635 and 1637, as shown by fragments of inscriptions at the bottom of the paintings. These engravings were, in turn, a reprint of the series Iconographia magni patris Aurelii Augustini by the Flemish engraver Schelte Adamsz Bolswert, published in 1624 in Antwerp. By examining the painting series captured in archival photographs, the study connects it to its graphic prototypes, allowing the identification of missing scenes and the reconstruction of its original conception. The series emphasizes Augustine as an exemplary Christian, founder of the order, author of the Rule, and heavenly intercessor, and focuses on the theme of the cult of his relics housed in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia.

Regarding the Augustinian iconography presented in the series, it is plausible that the paintings were commissioned and donated to the Samogitian Priest Seminary by the last Augustinian prior of Kaunas, Rev. Augustyn Strzedziński (1820–1893), already after the dissolution of the Augustinian order. Rev. Strzedziński was a former long-time dean of the Holy Trinity Parish Church in Kaunas and later a chaplain of the Kaunas Benedictine nuns. His purpose was likely to honour his heavenly patron and the founder of the order. The painting series was executed by an unidentified artist trained in the environment of a church art workshop in the last quarter of the 19th century, after 1874, probably in the 1870s–1880s.

The Museum of the Kaunas Archdiocese houses more artworks acquired from the Kaunas Priest Seminary, shedding light on the legacy of the Augustinians in Kaunas. Notably, there are portraits of Augustinian monks Jan Chrysostom Gołębiowski (ca. 1654–1700, after 1700) and Thomas Kobylański (1731–1805, early 19th century). These portraits suggest the possibility of forming a gallery of portraits of Polish Augustinian provincials or renowned Augustinians in the Vilnius Augustinian monastery. The third artwork with Augustinian iconography, titled Blessed Virgin Mary Hands a Cincture to St. Augustine and St. Monica (mid-19th century), was created after the Augustinians had settled in Kaunas. Collectively, these works serve as valuable witnesses to the relatively scarce heritage of the Lithuanian Augustinians.