On glass plates: Norwid’s unknown drawings, or Marcelina Czartoryska’s Album

Abstract

The article is concerned with one of Norwid’s artistic albums, called Marcelina Czartoryska’s Album named so after the owner’s name. Because the collection that was built up in the 19th century has not lasted till our times, in the introduction the author presents the present state of research on the album on the basis of the available literature of the subject, paying attention to a number of ambiguous, or even controversial questions that appear in the studies. Next she presents unknown archival material found in various museum collections: a detailed description of the album provided by Antoni Euzebiusz Balicki at the beginning of the 20th century, that at present is found in Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki’s archive, and a collection of 10 photographs of album pages from Ignacy Krieger’s Krakow studio, coming from the same period. The published materials make it to a large degree possible to reconstruct the contents of the album that is an interesting document, enriching our knowledge not only of Norwid’s visual heritage, but also on a broader plane – of his artistic biography.