Epiphany

The artist has taken up a theme that has been popular in European painting for centuries. He has also preserved the traditional age differentiation of the kings' figures, who belong to three generations. They are a young man in a turban, a man of age with a crown on his head and a kneeling older man who puts the insignia of his power at the Madonna's feet. Although the painting was made in Silesia, it shows close connections with Italian Baroque painting, and its composition was faithfully reproduced following Carl Maratta's graphics. The colour scheme is Willmann's solution: the colourful group of figures in the foreground contrasts with the brown, almost monochromatic background. The texture is also differentiated in his characteristic way – broad brush strokes in some parts of the robes and small, broken ones in the complexion and facial features.

Michael Lucas Leopold Willmann, born in Konigsberg in 1630, died on 26 August 1706 in Lubiąż. He started learning painting under his father, Christian Peter, and continued it during artistic journeys to Holland, Flanders, and German cities. In 1660, at the invitation of the abbot of the local Cistercian monastery, he settled in Lubiąż, where he opened a painting studio and stayed until the end of his life, working mainly for the Cistercian Order. He left an impressive legacy of almost three hundred paintings. He worked with a team consisting of his closest family members, including his grandson, the outstanding painter Georg Wilhelm Neunhertz.

He is highly esteemed during his lifetime while being called the Silesian Apelles, Rembrandt, Rubens or Raphael, and he also enjoys recognition today. It is proved by the Silesian Trail of Baroque Sacred Art, established in 2008, bearing the name of Michael Willmann. The National Museum in Wrocław holds the largest collection of his paintings.

Barbara Czajkowska