Geyner versus Reiner. Kwestia wątpliwego współautora fresków w kaplicy opata Hochberga we Wrocławiu
Geyner versus Reiner. The Question of the Doubtful Co-Author of the Frescoes in the Chapel of Abbot Hochberg in Wrocław

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the question of authorship of the set of frescoes decorating the vaulting of the abbot Hochberg’s chapel in the former Premonstratensians church in Wrocław. In the literature which mentions the paintings Wenzel Lorenz Reiner is most often assumed to be their author, however not only once, a mysterious painter Martin Geyner (Geyer) was ascribed to create or co-create them. Analysing the reference literature we can presume that the name of Geyner came here as the result of a mistake made by Kundmann, who was the first to produce a short description of the painterly decoration of the chapel eleven years after it had been erected. What is surprising, Kundmann did not even mention the name of Reiner, ascribing the frescoes to Geyner and naming him ‘a famous painter from Prague’. The information about Geyner was repeated later by many researchers, although he was not regarded as the only author of the paintings. The publications however, caused in a significant way the birth of the myth of the frescoes authorship. The contract for the paintings execution, which has been preserved in the State Archive of Wrocław, leaves no doubts about their author. It was signed between the abbot Hochberg and Reiner on 16 July 1725, and its contents allows us to claim, with the highest probability, that Reiner was the only executor both of the design of all the paintings and the frescoes themselves. Furthermore, in regard to the paintings analysis based on the photographs this opinion seems to be right.

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