Travel.LovePoland December 2020

the past
Nativity scene from Wieliczka
Digitalisation: RDW MIC, Małopolska's Virtual Museums project, public domain
Author: unknown
Date of production: 19th/20th century
Place of creation: Wieliczka, Poland
Dimensions: height in total: 136cm, base length:
115cm, base width: 46cm
Museum: The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic
Museum in Kraków
Material: wood, metal, cardboard, tinfoil, paper,
rye, stearin
Object copyright: The Seweryn Udziela
Ethnographic Museum in Kraków
"A model of a puppet nativity scene, symmetrical, with two storeys and five towers, provided with carrying handles on its sides. The entire structure is
made of wood, the base and the upper floor of boards, and the frame from strips of wood. The walls are made of cardboard; the ground floor is covered
with red paper with “bricks” painted with black ink and the walls of the upper floor and towers are covered with paper cut-outs in the shape of windows
and star ornaments. The floors are separated with a decoration of horizontal, multicoloured stripes with silver teeth on the sides.Side towers with eight
walls reinforced at the outer edges with round, silver pillars with spiral belts with Gothic helmets in the form of slender octagonal pyramids topped with
silver balls and flags, above them: red, fluttering to the centre (central), and white-blue (outer), waving outside. The central tower — set on a four-sided
building, nine-sided, with the same pyramidal cupola — is topped with an eight-pointed star with a tail, which according to popular imagination represents
the star of Bethlehem. In the centre of the floor, between the walls with symmetrical cut-outs in the shape of six-petal flowers, there is a niche covered
with silver paper, and inside, there are colourful figures printed on paper, cut out by contours. Inside, there is a printed fragment of wall on a blue
background with yellow stars, in the window, there are two cats, and against the background — a bird. In the middle there is a Nativity scene, with the
baby Jesus in the manger, the Virgin Mary and Joseph leaning over him, while behind them, there is a donkey and ox, and in front of them and at their
sides: bunnies and adoring figures — Three Kings, residents of Kraków, Highlanders, Miners with children. Above them, angels are carrying a scarf with
the words MERRY CHRISTMAS and in the background, there is a five-pointed star with a tail. At the front, pieces of a Christmas tree chain made of silver
and red aluminium foil hang under the roof like garlands. Originally, most of the
figurines were located on the ground floor, set inside, against a background of crumpled grey paper imitating rock (currently there is a highlander with
sheep, probably secondary figurines, pasted during maintenance, as part of the figurines from the floor). This is an earlier method of showing a stable
shed in the Nativity scene as a rocky cave, and its location on the ground floor of a puppet crib. Only figurines of shepherds and sheep
were on the 1st floor. There is also an entire Christmas scene under the roof made from ears of grain, supported by two round pillars, which is supposed
to represent thatch in the stable in Bethlehem.
This museum exhibit is an example of a carolling puppet crib unique to Poland — a portable theatre derived from the Christian tradition of Nativity, which
means arranging Christmas scenes and images depicting a newborn baby Jesus in the surroundings of the Holy Family and people adoring them in
churches. According to Jędrzej Kitowicz:
“We have a message from the Gospel that Christ, born in a stable, who was placed in praesepio. Praesepe means manger in Latin. A farmstead under a
manger is called Jasła, where the servant put the straw under the horses; whoever first invented the nativity play (...) understood that the manger and
jasła are the names which mean the same as the Latin word praesepe, and therefore gave his dolls and children's epigrams, with which he expressed
Nativity, the Polish name for jasełka [a nativity play]”.
.../.../...
description: www.muzeumkrakowa.pl, Elaborated by Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz (The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Kraków)
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