Lviv. The Boim Chapel. Restoring the Sorrowful Christ

The Boim Chapel in the centre of Lviv, near Rynok Square and the Latin Cathedral, was built in the Renaissance style for the Boim family in 1609-1615. The architect is unknown, but there is a version that it was A. Bemer. The western facade is the most richly saturated with decorative elements. The master from Wroclaw, Hanusz Scholz, is considered the author of the sculptural decoration.

 

Thanks to the scaffolding erected around the monument, restoration is under way in 2021-2024.

 

The chapel is crowned by a sculpture of the seated Christ, which since 2021 has been in a workshop undergoing restoration.

 

The stages of the restoration work were presented at the Ivan Heorhii Pinzel Museum in February 2024. At the centre of the exhibition hall stands the figure of the Sorrowful Christ, which has adorned the Boim Chapel for more than 400 years.

For the first time, viewers can examine the original sculpture up close from various angles, rather than from afar on the dome. Visitors study the structure of the material and its details and note that the limestone sculpture was created to be viewed from below. In 2021 it was dismantled for the first time and taken to the workshop of the Polonika institute, with which the Lviv authorities signed an agreement to carry out measures aimed at preserving cultural heritage. The exhibition shows the course and the specifics of a monument restorer's work, presented through the prism of its various steps. Touring the exhibition can be compared to a journey along the trails of successive research and conservation works, in which the exhibition's visitors become participants. Viewers share the joy of unexpected successes and the bitter aftertaste of unrealised hopes. The exhibition presents archival photographs and working documentation of modern technological methods, for example, 3D scanning and laser cleaning. A screen shows the sculpture's journey through the streets of Lviv from a height of 30 metres down to the workshop.

 

Interested visitors become acquainted with a palette of modern methods for studying monuments, based on complex technologies that draw on scientific discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry. The conservation and restoration work is revealed gradually, step by step. The first step was searching the archives and libraries of Lviv and Kraków for publications with material about the history of the chapel and the sculpture of Christ, and how the monument's appearance changed over the years. Unfortunately, even the archives did not help to identify the author. It is known that the most accurate photograph from earlier times was taken in 1912.

 

The results of the research made it possible to formulate the final programme of restoration measures. The main thing is minimal intervention in the sculpture, with the necessary cleaning of the surface by laser - the safest method that exists at present. The dismembered elements need to be joined, and cracks and small defects filled. The metal details and the wooden cross will be subject to reconstruction.

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This story is also available in Ukrainian: Львів. Каплиця Боїмів. Реставрація скульптури Скорботного Христа