TRYPTYK Z LĄDU – NIEZNANE DZIEŁO PÓŹNOGOTYCKIEJ SNYCERKI

The former Cistercian monastery in Lad on the Warta, today: the seat of the seminary of the Salesian Society, features a Late Gothic carved triptych with the figures of the Virgin Mary and Child and the following saints: Barbara, Catherine, Nicholas and Stanislaw. It has been established that in 1969 the triptych was transferred to Lad from an unidentified locality in the land of Lubusz. The monument was in a highly unsatisfactory condition, with the side wings detached from the main chest, and a missing fragment in the wing with St. Nicholas, while the figures showed traces of mechanical damage and repainting; in addition, they were assembled in an altered order. In 1979 it was decided to subject the monument to conservation, carried out by the Lodz-based conservator Jan Potz; the work lasted from May 1979 to October 1981. The conservation programme was subjected to the sacral purpose of the triptych and its functions. Apart from normal conservation, consultation with conservators and an art historian led to a decision to reconstruct the gilding, the silver plating, the missing wood, etc. The reconstruction of the polychrome was conducted with spots and dots in attempt to render them invisible from a greater distance. All the reconstruction and pointing are reversible. The Triptych from Lad is an altar with a main chest 97 x 94 x 16 cm large, a right wing 98 x 47,5 x 16 cm large, and a left wing 97,5 x 47 x 15,5 cm large. The formal features, especially the cut of the costume worn by St. Barbara, make it possible to place the origin in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.