Maria Magdalena Łubieńska (1833–1920) – an emancipated female artist

Abstract

Maria Magdalena Łubieńska née Countess Łubieńska (1833–1920), an amateur painter, author of oil paintings, watercolours and drawings, forced by the circumstances of life to found in 1867 the School of Drawing and Painting and then, in 1878, “Painting Shop”, which three years later became the Studio of St Luke, operating until at least 1910. Łubieńska’s Studio was chiefly famous for its stained glass windows (made in mixed technique). Many of them have survived to this day in churches, mostly neo-Gothic, located in the then Congress Kingdom of Poland. The stained glass works are also noted in the churches of the Austrian and Prussian partitions of Poland and former eastern borderlands, including Russia. The first stained glass window, for the Warsaw cathedral, Łubieńska was to paint herself. The stained glass windows made in the Warsaw studio, presented in this paper, reflect her activity only in part. Admired by her contemporaries, mocked in subsequent periods, they are currently becoming of interest to art historians.