Multi-criteria research study of two female portraits: Portrait of a Woman in Ruffle and Portrait of Sebastian Leerse’s Second Wife attributed to Anton van Dyck and conservation-restoration issues of Portrait of a Woman in Ruffle (from the collection of the National Museum in Gdańsk)
Implementing my Master’s project I had the opportunity to work on two objects of extraordinary class. Analysis was conducted on seventeenth-century paintings – female portraits: Portrait of a Woman in Ruffle and Portrait of Sebastian Leerse’s Second Wife from the collection of the National Museum in Gdańsk. Both paintings are attributed to Anton van Dyck. Subject of the work required collection of extensive historical knowledge, and also enabled realisation of my academic interest in analytical and comparative research, resulting in interesting discoveries.
The award-winning degree piece by Anna Selerowicz is manifold. It is a triple laurel wreath of outstanding marks: a piece of research, conservation and theoretical study I had the pleasure to supervise, and a drawing piece – an awarded appendix under Dr. hab. Grzegorz Stachańczyk.
I proposed something unique to Ania, a very talented person – research and conservation-restoration of outstanding works and writing of a compendium of the latest research methods. The subject is issues of multi-criteria conservation research, including historical, iconographic and technological ones, of two paintings from the collection of the National Museum in Gdańsk, attributed to Anton van Dyck: Portrait of a Woman in a Ruffle and Portrait of Sebastian Leerse’s Second Wife. Difficult conservation of the first work was executed.
The feature distinguishing Anna Selerowicz’s degree piece is holistic approach to works of art and problems. Thanks to collaboration with the second supervisor – Dr. Eng. Joanna Kurkowska it was possible to conduct this dissertation at a high level of interdisciplinary cooperation.
Works of art, with all their wealth and beauty, are a wonderful and huge study material. Therefore I wish Ania Selerowicz consistence and a great sail through the ocean of life.
Professor Iwona Szmelter
B. 1986; studied at the Faculty of Agriculture and Biology of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (2005–2009) and the Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2007–2014). Scholarship for academic merit in the years 2007–2012. Fields of artistic activity: drawing, painting, mixed media. Solo exhibition Inspirations, Bemowo Centre of Culture, Warsaw, 2014.