Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The article deals with the patronage of art by the Radvila women of the Nesvizh-Olyka branch of the family. It is seen as a complex organisational process that involved not only clients but also intermediaries. The aim is to reveal the typical roles of female patrons, identify the areas of art they supported the most, and assess the individual contribution of women. Research into the women’s activities during the Wettin period helps to reveal an important and still underestimated aspect of the social history of art in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the importance of family ties and cooperation in art commissions. The women often acted as intermediaries for their spouses and mother, Ona Sanguškaitė-Radvilienė. Compared to Western European countries, in the eighteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a poorly developed network of art agents and specialised art dealers. Therefore family ties and women’s mediation were crucial both in the hiring of artists and in the control of their work.

The article summarizes data on the training of painters and sculptors in the eighteenth-century workshops of the Radvilas’ artists. We seek to evaluate it in the context of the educational phenomena of early modern times. The analysis concerns organization of training, teaching practices, and their dissemination. In the eighteenth century, training of the subjects was carried out in the Radvilas’ residences of several generations. Some teachers were subjects of the dukes, some – arrivals working under contracts. The Radvilas continuously renewed the manor using qualified masters. Some of them were foreigners, experienced artists that mastered different art techniques. Training usually took place in the manor although there are known cases of sponsored trips of the artists to larger cities of the Commonwealth of Both Nations, where subjects improved their skills in the workshops of local artists. In the Radvilas’ residences practical training was dominant. Basics of drawing were studied first, pupils drew sculptural models, copied paintings from the collections of the aristocrats, assisted to masters in implementing orders from the dukes. Thus training in the Radvilas’ residences was performed using practices common in training artists of the early modern times. In the context of training of the Radvilas’ artists stands out the project by Jeronimas Florijonas Radvila to establish a drawing school, which had to be directed by a member of the Viennese academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, painter and drawer Lorenzo Titian de Vecceli. Perhaps in 1756, an eight- year contract was concluded according to which he was to teach young men the drawing of landscapes, figures and ornaments. In the contract this drawing school was called academy, probably after a fashion of the similar eighteenthcentury European, often small ones, schools, called academies. In Biala of Podlasie, Lorenzo Titian worked until the death of Florijonas Radvila in 1760. Although almost there is no data on activities of this artist in Biala, it is probable that the master was teaching to draw. Titian’s work for Radvila was brief and, possibly, did not have any significant influence on the education of the local artists. Despite this, Radvila’s idea and start of its implementation showed the need for higher level training of artists. Links of the Radvilas’ artists with professional and specialized educational institutions were rare. In the residences of the dukes, just like in the rest of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, dominated little formalized education of artists. Although it was not always effective, it has produced a number of masters that continued working for the Radvilas. Tutors were usually shared among family members, although there is data on the work of the artists of the dukes for the representatives of other families. Having in mind the scope and dissemination of the training of artists, residences of the Radvilas can be considered one of the important centres of art education in the eighteenth-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania.