Zukowo - Gallery One

. . . THIS MAY TAKE A MOMENT OR TWO . . .

We are most grateful to a great Friend of our Order

Dr. Joanna Szczesna of the Catholic University of Lublin Poland, 

for her help and comments below.  

This is Zukowo in Poland, view from the northwest. 

 

The church is made of brick, in the shape of an elongated rectangle with incorporated triangularly closed chancel. 

It was built in several phases: during about half of the 13^th century four western bays were built. 

They were lower than they are presently, with a narrow tower in the shape of half of the octagon 

(the initial height is marked from the outside by the plaster friezes below the windows and the outline 

of the semi peaks on the sides of the tower); in the 14^th century the church was continuously 

being elongated and heightened until it reached it’s present size, in the north an outbuilding with the 

treasury and the sacristy (present-day chapel) was added; there are dual or triple windows 

and in their closures we find traceries composed of false stone; the interior was initially 

covered with a ceiling.  In the first decades of the 14^th century it was vaulted 

(barrel cap vaulting).  At the same time a vaulted gallery for the nuns was built into the three bays. 

The monastic buildings were demolished in 1863; only the reconstructed fragment adjoining the 

western part of the church from the south and the transformed building southeast 

of the church has survived.  

View from the south

View from the southeast.

Alabaster Tablet - Adoration of the Magi - c. 1380, 49x40 cm.)

 

This tablet is now situated on the eastern wall of the northern chapel, and is English in origin.  

The composition shows The Adoration of the Magi consisting of six figures in a horizontal rectangle. 

The tablet  presents a bed on which we see a half-lying figure of Mary pillowed 

on the left and holding Baby Jesus. There is a woman by the left edge. 

On the right, there are individualised figures of the Magi. Two of them are standing 

behind the bed. On the axis of the composition, there is a Magus with a beard wearing 

an open crown and holding a pot. By the right edge there is the other Magus standing frontward 

without a beard, also with an open crown, holding his gift in his left hand and pointing 

to the star with his right. The star is on the left, next to the head of the Magus presented 

in the centre. The third Magus with a beard and bold is shown by the right cushion of the bed. 

He is leaning low giving the glass containing his gift to Jesus, who outstretches His little hands to reach it.  

Chasuble from Zukowo

 

One of the specialties of the Convent at Zukowo was beautifully ornamented embroidery.

Embroidery was not a universal activity at Norbertine Convents, but Zukowo was

famous for its embroidery (just as the Spanish Convent of Toro is today).  

This Chasuble was sewn/embroidered for the Abbot

of the nearby Cistercian Abbey of Gdansk-Ollwa, Alexander Kesowski.

He was abbot of that house from 1641-1667, and the chasuble

was probably embroidered close to the end of his reign.

Zukowo Monstrance: c. 1450, gilded silver, height 66 cm, foot 22x19 cm,  

Originally from Gdansk, now in the Parish Museum of Zukowo.  

 

This is a tower-bell shaped monstrance. The sectors of the octagonal foot are alternatively semicircular 

and ogive, decorated with engraved acanthus leaves. The base has an openwork foil inscribed 

into rhombuses. The temple node is separated by two hexagonal plates and crowned with 

tall polygonal canopy. The temple-shaped case is mounted in side buttresses, topped with tall spires from 

below and ends with ‘plastic cone’ volutes. The buttresses hold the round host case. Above, 

there is a hexagonal tower whose base is fitted with ogive arcades, which have mounting 

pinnacles and turrets. In the space in between, there is a carved statue of 

The Virgin and Child in "The Beautiful Madonna" style. 

The monstrance is topped with the arbor vitae cross.