Easter egg

An Easter egg is an attribute of Easter. The egg was a symbol of life, fertility, love and strength, and the symbolism of ornaments written on it played an important magical role. In the Lublin region, eggs were most often decorated using the batik technique, which involved writing on a pattern with melted wax using a marker made of sheet metal in the form of a funnel set on a stick. In the past, natural vegetable dyes were used: from onion skins, beetroot juice, oak, alder or apple bark, forkbeard seeds or young rye shoots, walnut bark, leaves and fruit peel, elderberry buds or fruit and poppy flowers.

According to the type of ornamentation, Easter eggs from Lublin can be divided into two main groups: northern, where single-colour pattern with straight lines prevails, and southern, with multi-colour and numerous volute ornaments (see E/1137/ML); in the central part of Lublin region the influences of the groups intermingled and there were multi-colour ornaments with straight lines.

Interesting ornamental motifs, apart from geometrical and plant ones, were animals and insects, forming a specific Easter egg inventory. Among them we can find roosters, hens, chickens and other birds (pigeons, storks, peacocks, sparrows), as well as rabbits or hares, goats, dogs, deer, butterflies, spiders.

In the ethnographic collection of the National Museum in Lublin, there are approximately 2500 Easter eggs made by artists from the Lublin region. Most of them were made in the years 1950-1980, while a significant number (around 500), unfortunately of unknown authorship, date from the early 20th century. This Easter egg is one of the oldest.