Pythagoras (?), Neapolitan school, circle of Luca Giordano, end of 17th century, National Museum in Wrocław

Newton, end of 17th century, National Museum in Wrocław

Portraits of scholars, imaginary or based on graphic models, set into cycles or pairs, among which perhaps the most popular was that of Heraclitus and Democritus, enjoyed considerable popularity in the Baroque. They enabled the artist to characterize the personality and physiognomy of great thinkers and were attractive wall decorations in scholars’ studies and in libraries. Pairs of philosophers stylistically akin to the Wrocław pieces were painted, for instance, by Luca Giordano (cf. Alte Pinakothek, Munich).

A Man Writing, Hendrick Martensz Sorgh (Rotterdam 1610/1611 – Rotterdam 1670), 1663, Signed and dated in the middle of the left-hand side edge (on a slip of paper): HM Sorgh/ 1663 (HM interwoven), National Museum in Warsaw.

The subject is a Protestant preacher and probably theologian. In the art of the modern era a dog was often depicted as a scholar’s companion on account of natural intelligence and intuition ascribed to this animal and also because it served as an example of methodical searching. Moreover, a dog functioned as a symbol of fidelity and vigilance, a parrot, very often appearing in iconography and emblematic art as a symbol of erudition and eloquence. On the table the open Bible.

Hendric Martensz Sorgh was a pupil of David Teniers the Younger and Willem Pietersz Buytewech. He mainly specialized in genre scenes – under the influence of the Saftleven brothers he painted interiors with peasants and kitchen interiors with elaborate still lifes, stylistically referring to Teniers and Brouwer as well as the Ostade brothers. He also frequently depicted market scenes and, more rarely, musical parties. In addition, he painted small-format portraits, marines, and historical scenes.

Professor Stanisław Bieżanowski, Polish painter, 1671, Unsigned, inscription at top right: M: Stanislaus Ioseph, Bieżanowski Leopoliensis Phiae Doktor Poeseos Profesor, Collegii Minoris Senior Pater, Historiograph, Petrician, Anis 40, solâ Vimentis, ob. defectu visus, In Alma Universitate Cracoviensi, Vie… stylo Scriptor Celeberrim, Obiit Ano Dni 1693.4-to Id, 9 bris. Aetatis suae 65. Orbitatis vero visus 43, Jagiellonian University Museum.

The painting is a remarkable example of a 17th century portrait of a professor. It is an official portrait. On the table some objects – books and a birette which define his field of activity. Stanisław Bieżanowski (1628–1693) was a doctor of philosophy, professor of poetry and historiographer. He        was exempted from his academic duties because of his eye disease, instead being obliged to write occasional poems for the Jagiellonian University. 

A Learned Lawyer, Cornelis Dusart (Haarlem 1660 – Haarlem 1704), ca. 1635, Property of the Tarnowski family, deposited at the National Museum in Cracow.

Cornelis Dusart was painter, draughtsman, engraver, and collector. He was one of the last pupils of Adriaen van Ostade. He was the follower of his master Jan Steen. His series of etchings and mezzotints which influenced the development of Dutch caricature have assured him a place in the history of art.

Michael Christoph Hanow, Jakub Wessel (Gdańsk 1710 – Gdańsk 1780),1752, Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The portrait was painted for the 25th anniversary of the appointment of Hanow (1695–1773) as professor at the Academic Gymnasium in Gdańsk, on the books the titels of his works. The sitter wears elegant attire with the visible hilt of a small-sword at his side, which indicates that he belongs to the elite. The painter continues here in a particular way the traditions of the Late Baroque portrait of a scholar, looking to the likeness of Hevelius for whom experimentation was indispensable in research work.

Hanow belonged to the group of people who in 1743 founded in Gdańsk the Societas Physicae Experimentalis, from 1753 called Die Naturforschende Gesellschaft.

Jakob Wessel  - pupil of Johann Benedikt Hoffmann the Elder. Around 1736 he studied painting under Antoine Pesne in Berlin. He won renown as a portraitist, especially skilled in pastels, and was the author of the paintings decorating the interiors of Gdańsk burgher houses and of mythological scenes in municipal edifices (Artus Mansion). He skilfully combined the local traditionalism with new currents of 18th century French court portraiture.

Jakob Theodor Klein,  Jacob Wessel (Gdańsk 1710 – Gdańsk 1780), 1759, Signed on the back: J.Wessel pinxit 1759, National Museum in Gdańsk

In this portrait Wessel continues the tradition of 17th century Gdańsk portrait painting, following Dutch patterns, which he combines with elements of 18th century West European court portraiture, close to works by A. Pesne. Klein was an eminent Gdańsk naturalist, member of numerous European learned societies. He founded a private botanical garden in Gdańsk, in which he carried out scientific experiments on unique plant species; he also created his own collection of natural history specimens which included an assemblage of shells. He was the author of numerous scientific treatises, among them those on botany, zoology, and paleontology.

Stanisław Konarski, unknown Polish painter, before 1750, National Museum in Warsaw, In the 18th century it hung in the theatre hall of the Warsaw Collegium Nobilium, in 1811 was kept in the seat of the Piarist order in Żoliborz, and in 1832 in the former Jesuit building in Świętojańska Street; after the dissolution of the Order in 1860 it was purchased by a private collector.

Hieronim Konarski (1700–1773), bearer of the Gryf coat of arms, his monastic name Stanisław of St Laurence; a Piarist, reformer of the educational system and political writer. He worked out a new model of education for the Collegium Nobilium, a Warsaw school designed for the children of the rich gentry and magnates. It was based on the French pattern of the Nazarene College in Paris and on Konarski’s own observations made during his foreign travels. He restricted the role Church Latin and introduced into the school curriculum foreign languages, geography, history, geometry, physics and possibly also civil and military architecture, extended the teaching of the Polish language, emphasized the religious but not excessively devotional education, and took care of developing in pupils honourable and patriotic attitudes. His reform was responsible for the establishment of a modern model of Polish education in a spirit of good citizenship and of the Enlightenment. 

The Geometer (Pitagoras?), Antoine Pesne (Paris 1683 – Berlin 1757), ca. 1710, National Museum in Wrocław, In 1738 recorded together with its pendant (A Gypsy Woman Telling Fortunes) in the general inventory of the royal Prussian collections as being kept in the Berlin castle (Gen. Kat. 1638). After 1883 both pictures were passed to the Prussian residence in Wrocław (where they decorated Frederick the Great’s bedroom), which about 1926 was transformed into a branch of the Museum of Applied Arts (Schlossmuseum inv. 96, 97). From 1946 they were kept at the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. 186445, 186446).

The scholar in his study is a “generic theme” whose tradition goes back to the Early Christian images of the Evangelists and the Fathers of the Church and which was popularized by Dürer’s engravings and readily taken up in 17th century Holland.

Antoine Pesne - portraitist, painter of court genre scenes and mythological compositions, fresco painter, and decorator of palace interiors.

In the Scholars’ Study, Johann Michael Bretschneider, (Aussig 1656 – Wiedeń 1727), first quarter of 18th century, signed at bottom right: JMBretschneider […] Ao […], National Museum in Wrocław.

Bretschneider frequently painted interiors. Especially well known are his large-format art chambers and galleries modelled on paintings by the Antwerp artists. The scholar in his study was a subject particularly popular with the artists in Leiden (Rembrandt, Dou), a Dutch university centre.

Johann Michael Bretschneider- A Czech painter His paintings were influenced by Dutch and Flemish art and especially by David Teniers the Younger. His subject matter includes still lifes with flowers and genre scenes, but particularly interesting and exceptional in the contemporary Czech painting are his scenes in interiors, views of gallery interiors, and curio cabinets.

Philosophers in the Study, Johann Michael Bretschneider (Aussig 1656 – Wiedeń 1727), first half of 18th century, signed at bottom right: J: MBretschneider de Aussi Inv: et pinxit, National Museum in Poznań

Subjects such as scholars in their studies, an art gallery, and a curio cabinet were frequently taken up in 17th and 18th century painting and graphic art. These pictures presented workplaces where scholars created their works, or depicted “cabinets of amateurs”, a testimony to the collector’s passion and connoisseurship of their clients.

Air pump,Vast, Paris, 1758, Jagiellonian University Museum

The design of the apparatus was described by Jean Antoine Nollet   . Early designs of air pumps date from the mid-17th century , In the 18th century such pumps were improved and became elements of the standard equipment of physics cabinets. Single- and double-barrel air pumps were used for research and demonstration.The first to have practical application in practice was a mercury pump, invented in 1855 by Heinrich Geissler (1815–1879).

Nairne’s electrostatic generator, England, early 19th century, Jagiellonian University Museum, Purchased for the Jagiellonian University Museum in 1994

 The cylindrical generator patented by Edward Nairne (1726–1806) in 1783 in London was the first type of an electrostatic generator that made it possible to obtain positive as well as negative electric charges. Cylindrical generators, popular in England towards the end of the 18th century, were frequently used for demonstration of the effect of an electric charge on the human organism and employed in the then emergent new branch – electrotherapy.

A model of the Archimedes screw, late 18th century, Jagiellonian University Museum.

This is one of typical models made for cabinets of physics in the 18th century.

Pyrometer, 18th century, Jagiellonian University Museum

An instrument for measuring the thermal expansion of metals. The dial bears an external scale graduated from 0 to 10° with each 0.5 marked, increasing clockwise, and an internal scale with an identical increasing graduation but counter-clockwise. Two pointers indicated conventional values when the bar of the metal examined was being heated and when it was cooling.

Grafometr, Claude Langlois, Paris, 1730–1780, signed: C. Langlois Paris au Niveau, Jagiellonian University Museum

 Graphometer, a simplified circumferentor, was given by Philippe Danfrie (1531–1606) in the Déclaration de l’usage du graphomčtre (Paris 1597); simple in construction, it survived with small modifications as the principal surveying instrument until the 19th century

Claude Langlois, one of the best French scientific-instrument makers. From 1730 to 1780 he made sundials as well as surveying and astronomical instruments, which were distinguished by a high degree of accuracy and the precision of execution along with lavish ornamentation.

Triangulation instrument, 18th century, Astronomical Observatory in Wrocław

A surveying instrument for topographic measurements with the application of the triangulation method and trigonometric ratios. The alidade with movable arms functioned as a triangulation instrument. After turning the arm over to the side of the protractor it was possible to determine the value of an angle at which the target was seen, the instrument then functioning as a trigonometer. Triangulation instruments and trigonometers were not frequently used and were characterized by a great variability in construction.

The optical instruments

The meteorological instruments

ï Room  III

up ñ

Room V   ð

Description È