Hermina cutting her hair

The painting from the museum’s collection depicts a young woman, shown in bust, with beautiful golden hair, a lock of which she is cutting with scissors held in her hands. This is Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy III, the 3rd century BC ruler of Egypt, who vowed to sacrifice her hair if her husband returned happily from an expedition to Syria. After the vow was fulfilled, the hair mysteriously disappeared from the temple, and a court astronomer announced that it had been moved between the stars, forming the constellation Berenice’s Lock. The painting comes from the 2nd quarter of the 17th century and is probably a copy from the original made by Bernardo Strozzi. Bernardo Strozzi, called Il Prete Genovese (born 1581 in Genoa, died August 1644 in Venice) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period who studied painting in Siena. He spent 12 years in the Capuchin Order in Genoa and was later a missionary. He also worked as an engineer at the port. After moving to Venice around 1630, he acquired the title of an aristocrat. Influenced by Caravaggio and Rubens, he created genre, religious, allegorical paintings and portraits. Several of his paintings can be found in museums in Poland. The Łańcut painting is unsigned, and is exhibited in the Billiard Room on the first floor of the castle.