Interventional conservation works in Lviv and Zhovkva (Ukraine) financed by the MKiDN in 2023

Subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture – a state purpose fund.

In 2023, the Association for the Supportt of Research and Conservation Initiatives received funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s programme “Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad” to carry out rescue and conservation work on three monuments located in Ukraine. These are: “Necessary conservation work on the side altar “Transfiguration of the Lord” in the Latin Cathedral in Lviv. Stage II”, “Continuation of intervention conservation work on the Stroinski polychromies in the former Church of the Poor Clares in Lviv under the invocation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, now used by the Borys Woźnicki Lviv Art Gallery”, and “Rescue conservation work on the polychromy depicting the sundial, discovered in 2018 in Zhovkva Castle”. The first two of these tasks are a continuation of last year’s work. The third is a new research and conservation project.

A Zolkiew object in need of immediate conservation intervention and rescue measures is a fragmentarily preserved polychrome with a representation of a sundial, located on the façade of the former kitchen wing of Zhovkva Castle (now a branch of the B. Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery). The composition was discovered in 2018 during renovation and restoration works conducted at the castle. The polychrome was probably created in the 17th or 18th century, at a time when the castle belonged to the Sobieski family and later to the Radziwill family.

The plaster-painted clock face with an anthropomorphic image of the sun, hour lines, numerals and inscriptions is in critical condition. Covered by numerous seepages, the plaster is brittle and detached from the wall. The degraded paint layer is barely legible, and the whole object is exposed to the weather and the vibrations accompanying the work carried out on the castle. The measures taken by the Society will consist of exposing the rest of the painting, securing and reinforcing the technological layers and drawing up full documentation of the monument and conservation work. In addition, material and iconographic research will be carried out to identify the object.

The task is being carried out by the conservation team that in 2012-15 discovered and secured relics of the oldest paintings in the interiors of the palace wing of the Zhovkva castle. The results of that project are stored on the servers of the King John III Palace Museum in Wilanów, which initiated the research at the time:

http://www.zolkiew.wilanow-palac.pl/index-en.html