шляхта

The canvas, presented at the Department of Ancient History exposition of the Lviv Historical Museum, is one of several dozen replicas retained today, which were duplicated and repainted for a long time after the original has been pained in the last years of the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is as assumed that there were so many of first canvas-samples as depicted on the painting voivodships and lands.

The coat of arms on a noble portrait serves as an important tool for the identification of people on the portraits. Taking into account this circumstance in future will allow to give more accurate information about the persons depicted on portraits in the collection of the Lviv Historical Museum, most of which are not yet identified or the identification is mistaken or hypothetical.

There are 43 noble portraits with the coat of arms of 17th – the beginning of 20th century in Lviv Historical Museum’s collection. The images of noble emblems at the portraits were motivated by the desire to show a person’s belonging to a particular armorial or family community. An appeal to the history of its family wasn’t random, as the nobleman thus emphasized that by his activities he contributed to the enhancement of the glory and prestige of his ancestors.