Boims’ epitaph from the chapel of the Holy Trinity and the Passion of the Lord in the context of the evolution of memorial plastic between the 16th and 17th centuries
Authors: Lehedza Anna 
Published: November 2023

Basing on the use of principles of a system approach, comparative and historical, semiotic, iconographic, iconic, formal and stylistic methods it has been defined the place and the meaning of Boims’ epitaph from the chapel of the Holy Trinity and the Passion of the Lord in Lviv dealing with the topology of memorial plastics and sculptural portrait’s evolution in the modern West-Ukrainian lands at the border of the 16th and 17th centuries; the paper characterizes image-thematic and artistic peculiarities of a landmark and points out identifications of separate personalities among those who have been specified.
The study stresses on the fact that the epitaph combines the features of memorial compositions of family prayer kneeling that was popular in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 1550–1575s, and the adoration of the sacred scene by spouses that is presented as iconographic type developed in the 1600–1625s as the imitation of monumental tombstones of noble families’ representatives.
The author suggests that except for J. Pfister's desire to avoid usual decisions, lack of space to place sculpture and customers’ wishes to immortalize all representatives of the genus, the composition tiering has been inspired with single tiered family bourgeois epitaphs in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the sculptor's tendency to develop multi-level structures.
The research demonstrates the portrait’s development in Lviv sculpture that has proved the subordination of the heraldic program to the psychological features of the depicted personalities, its shift from the reproduction as a part of the ancestral organism (the epitaph of the Sholts-Volfovychs’ family) to the creation of the family image as an emergent unity of individuals, and is a characteristic of Boim’s epitaphs. The author highlights the development of Lviv sculptural portrait presented with the visualization of psychological interconnections of Boim’s family representatives, the expression of the essential one at the moment, the depiction of individual one in the associations with generally cultural and over-timed one.
The paper focuses on “a-tectonicity”, “belonging to painting”, and dynamic development of the epitaph’s form especially noticed in a group of “Pieta”. The study highlights the integrity of a composition provided with zigzag baroque rhythm, outlining imaginative triangle with prayerfully folded palms of George and Yadviga Boim and the head of the Mother of God, the contrast of white alabaster and black marble background, stressing on central axis with fragmented Crucifixion, cartouche scrolls, the figure of the blessing Christ.
The author suggests the statement about the picture at the second level of the composition that is the first from the inscription, not of the son, but of Pavel Georgy Boim’s brother, and in the series as a whole is the adoration of the Pieta by the sons of the family protoplast.
The author points out the deformation of the epitaph’s reception under the conditions of its probable transferring from the original surrounding.