Mother of God

The Biłgoraj Forests, located in the southern part of the Lublin region, were a land of folk artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. They left behind sculptural mementoes, i.e. chapels, crosses. To this day, they are an expression of piety and a specific form of prayer. They were founded by individual people, families, professional and social groups, and often by the inhabitants of entire settlements, villages and towns.

On 8 June 1863, in the Russian partition, Governor-General M. N. Muravyov issued an order prohibiting the repair of old crosses and shrines and the erection of new ones outside the walls of churches or cemeteries. At that time, saints erected shrines at night, in hidden places, among dense thickets, along forest roads.

Shrines had different forms. Most often they were: small buildings in a form of a free-standing brick or wooden house, wooden cabinets fixed on a pole or column, and niches hollowed in a tree trunk. In addition to the shrines placed inside, the date of the chapel's erection, the initial words of the prayer, the names of the founders, but never the name of the builder were cut out. They were usually skilled country carpenters or joiners, self-taught sculptors, who made shrines and holly sculptures on commission. A special group were wandering carvers - specialists. Many of those remembered by name worked in the Biłgoraj district. One of them was Mikołaj Gomiela (1843-1908), brother-in-law of Paweł Bień's son, another well-known muralist. He was an individualist, not modelled on anyone, his works were characterised by the rhythmic arrangement of the folds of the figure's dress.

The gilded sculpture of Matka Boska [Virgin Mary] (the so-called Angel's Greeting) comes from a chapel in the village of Szeliga, founded in 1908 by M. Gomelia's uncle, Adam Oleshchuk. Together with two other larger Marian representations (height of about 60 cm) and a sculpture of the Sorrowful Christ (height 59 cm), it made up the entire furnishing.