Zprávy památkové péče 2020, 80(3-4):366-377 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2020.3.12

Devastated stucco in the garden pavilion of the castle in Gorzanów

Vladislava Říhová¹, Zuzana Křenková², Lucie Bartůňková¹, Pavla Jandová

¹ Fakulta restaurování Univerzity Pardubice

² Ústav chemické technologie a restaurování památek, VŠCHT v Praze

The residence of the Herberstein family was built in the village of Gorzanów, Poland, in the county of Kłodzko, during the 17th century. It included a composed Baroque garden that held an early Baroque garden pavilion with grottos, still preserved today. The pavilion has long attracted the interest of art historians; its architecture and decoration have been attributed to the realizations of the Prague workshop of Carlo Lurago. The pavilion's rich stucco decorations rank it alongside the decorations of the castle chapel in Náchod. Several decades of non-maintenance have left the pavilion in desolate condition.
In 2017-2018, after archival, constructional-historical, and restorational research, the reconstruction and restoration of the pavilion was fully conceptualized. The presented study presents its partial results related to the stucco decoration of the pavilion, presenting its currently preserved state, including comparisons with historical photo documentation. On the ground floor, the pavilion is demarcated by an elevated central circular hall covered by a dome with a roof lantern. From the outside, it is accessible by a pair of adjacent halls. Between the halls, there are three side spaces on each side (two grottos and two spiral staircases). The staircases provided access to the original outdoor terrace which stretched over the vaults of the ground floor in the form of a ring; it was accessed from the outside into the lantern above the vault of the dome. The interior decoration of the pavilion was completed by rich stucco decorations covering the ceilings and walls, which were also complemented by mirrors with wall paintings. The stucco figures were executed in high relief, with their limbs often being detached from the ground. Ornamental, vegetable, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic elements contrasted with structured "grotto" surfaces created as artificial stalactites in mortar or as tiles with porous travertine and slag. The devastation of the stucco revealed the materials and technological procedures used. The vertical structures were built using mixed masonry, supplemented by brick vaults and a roof lantern built as a light half-timbered structure. Two layers of mortar were applied to the masonry in the interior. The first base layer was a thicker more diluted mortar on which the second mortar was applied. The basic articulation of the architecture was engraved into the surface of this smooth plaster; this was executed with a sharp-pointed object and was probably further drawn into subtle lines with laths. Smaller rounded parts of the future architectural articulation were outlined between the engraved lines using an angular drawing. More complicated figural and vegetable stucco was cursorily drawn on the smooth plaster. These drawings are visible in many places from which entire stucco figures have fallen off. The stucco artists utilized a variety of support elements to model tall figural elements. They used a core made of brick or other masonry fragments, upon which they applied the stucco mass; they also used iron staples, nails, thorns, and wires, and inserted iron fittings into the masses of the statues. A white fine lime mortar, bonded with strongly dolomitic lime with a low impurity content and a high proportion of magnesium, was used to finalize the modifications. The filler component consists of pure silica sorted sand. Mortar was applied to the monumental figures in the niches in several layers. Decorative architectural elements were partly created using templates; this is clearly evident in the pearl ornament, where the beads, together with the pair of punctures on the sides, were probably continuously extruded by a serrated blade. The stucco was uniformly harmonized to a light whitish tone. A visual inspection of the original coating revealed at least two younger, non-original lime layers of surface treatment which already had an admixture of brown-red clays. Research also revealed several unique fragments of colored layers, especially in the pupils of the eyes. The blue top layer containing artificial ultramarine was younger; below it was an older black (perhaps original) color. Previous research most often dated the stucco decoration to the 1650s, although the dating of the pavilion architecture itself was placed at 1637. Part of the research included the opportunity to use dendrochronological dating on the lantern's structural elements. The oak wood was felled at the turn of 1660-1661, the fir beams in 1666-1667. These dates provided a fixed time frame for the creation of the pavilion and its decorations. Hypothetically, we can date the origin of the pavilion to 1667 and presume that its stucco decoration was created in close connection with the completion of the architecture.

Keywords: Gorzanów, stucco, early Baroque architecture, restoration research, garden pavilion

Published: September 1, 2020  Show citation