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Portable altar

Author: Unknown artist
Created:second half of the 17th century
Material:wood
Technique:oil, gilding, carving, woodwork
Dimensions:61.50 × 45 cm

Dimensions: painted compositions on the external side of the doors: 27.3 × 9.4 and 7 × 12.8; all compositions on the internal side of the doors: ca 11.2 × 13.5; sculpture of Jesus of Nazareth: H 33.

A portable folding altar intended for private devotion and meditation is the only known such artefact in Lithuania. Judging from its modest decoration and the themes of the pictures on its outside, this altar was made for a Franciscan or a Bernardine friar. The outsides of the doors of the folding altar are decorated with pictures of two Franciscan saints, St Francis of Assisi and St Anthony of Padua. On a smaller panel below the figure of St Francis is a picture of him receiving the stigmata. Below the figure of St Anthony is a picture of his miracle with a donkey bowing before the Eucharist. There is a folk sculpture of Jesus of Nazareth in the central recess inside the altar, decorated with cartilaginous decoration, but there was probably originally an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This assumption is based on the themes of the six small compositions on the insides of the small doors. They portray important episodes from the life of the Virgin, and should be read from the bottom. On the left at the bottom there is a picture of the birth of the Virgin Mary, and on the right the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple. The pictures above it are of the Annunciation and the Visitation. The top compositions portray the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and Mary’s Assumption into Heaven. They are all painted in a light and sketchy manner by a skilled artist. Taken altogether, they are particularly interesting and valuable from an iconographic point of view.

Text author Dalia Vasiliūnienė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album HEAVEN AND BEYOND (2016). Compiler Dalia Vasiliūnienė. Text authors Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė
Expositions: “Heaven and Beyond. Works of religious art from the collection of Rolandas Valiūnas and the law firm Valiunas Ellex“, 31 May–24 September 2016, Church Heritage Museum, Vilnius (curators Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė)