As signaled by the citation of Proverbs 8:24 and Sirach 24:31 in its prologue, the decree of the Council of Basel on the Immaculate Conception represented a triumph of the immaculist Marian teaching of the Franciscan theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus. The Franciscan Studium Generale at the church of Sant'Antonio in Padova had been a flourishing center of Scottist philosophy and theology since the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Franciscan companions and allies of the Subtle Doctor and his immediate successors returned from their studies in Paris and Oxford. It seems plausible that after Basel the Franciscans might have wished to celebrate the victory of the Immaculata and their own Scottist theology in a new altarpiece for their church, carried out by Donatello between 1446 and 1450. The interpretation sets the Virgin's sapiential persona into the broader context of the long-standing Christian homology between Genesis and the Timaeus, producing a Platonic reading of the Immaculata as the feminine principle in creation: the mother, receptacle, and womb of all generation. In his treatise De Iside et Osiride Plutarch had identified that primordial feminine principle with Isis, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom. Certain formal resemblances between Donatello's Virgin and figures of Isis are interpreted in terms of this homology. Given that the Council of Basel was schismatic by the time it issued the decree on the Immaculate Conception, the Isis persona provided a well-found confirmation of their predelicted doctrine in the writings of some ancient theologians.

Unique in its vantage-point, Mantegna's canvas popularly known as the Foreshortened Christ is evidently opposed to orthodox perspectival correctness. Far from conventional in its construction, the image places special emphasis upon Christ's wounds in accord with devotional practices and values of the later Middle Ages. Just as canvas' painter is so often close to the Northern esthetic, he is here equally near later Northern spirituality, though the latter is tied to early Christian and medieval sources. In terms of the focal point of the image, its patronage and subsequent ownership, this curiously, expressionistically condensed vista should be understood synoptically, in the sense that the wounds are given a novel collectivity, their sequence allowing for a phylogeny and ontogeny recapitulating the shedding of Christ's blood.

In 1964 our work on an inventory of monuments of the Podlasie region (Eastern Poland) led to the discovery - in the church of the village Kosow Lacki - of a painting by El Greco showing St. Francis in Ecstasy. The much dirtied and partly overpainted canvas has been subjected in 1974 to an extensive restoration which uncovered the original signature of the artist (Domenikos Theotocop...) and some pentimenti. The results of the technological investigations confirmed the attribution of the painting to El Greco formulated by the authors in 1964. Owing to problems of Church and State relations, the painting remained in virtual seclusion until October 2004, when it was put on view in the newly opened Diocesan Museum in Siedlce (Masovia). The nearest analogy to the painting from Kosow Lacki is provided by El Greco's Stigmatisation of St. Francis in the Madrid Abello collection (formerly Pidal collection) painted around 1580. In our analysis we have shown that in the Kosow Lacki painting the painter did initiate - though in a hesitant way - an iconographic formula of the Stigmatisation of St. Francis that was later developed fully in his depiction of the theme in the Abello collection. Thus the painting from Kosow Lacki provided also a model for most paintings in El Greco's St. Francis series, which is now dispersed all over the world. Both the Abello and the Kosow Lacki versions are undoubtedly autograph works; they were repeated in numerous variants or copies (a dozen or so) produced by his workshop or by his copyists. We also would like to put forward the hypothesis that El Greco had been the first artist to introduce - probably under the influence of the writings of St. Peter of Alcantara - into the scene of St. Francis's ecstasy and stigmatisation the motif of the skull. As a date for the Polish painting from Kosow Lacki we propose the end of the 1570s. It is not known how and when El Greco's St. Francis in Ecstasy reached Poland. It seems that before its apparition in Kosow Lacki (around 1927) it did pass through the art trade.

The origin of the Wallace Collection's painting has been controversially placed either in the years 1553-1556 or 1562-1565. Rearick (Artibus et Historiae, no. 33, 1996) regarded the picture as a second version painted in the 1560s after a completely differently composed and today lost first version of the 1550s. Contesting this view the article argues - based e.g. on an etching by Giulio Sanuto hitherto not sufficiently taken into account - that the London painting was shipped in 1556 from Titian to Philipp II in Gent. Furthermore the variant of the painting in Montauban, attributed to Titian's workshop, testifies to the fact that a second, slightly modified version of the canvas in the Wallace Collection remained in Venice even after the picture was delivered. A copy after the painting sent to Philipp II, done in Madrid at the end of the sixteenth century also supports the early date of the London picture. Finally, Luca Giordano's copy painted around 1700 in Madrid - for the first time reproduced here - is based on this version and not on the painting in the Wallace Collection as has been argued.

The theme of the paper is dedicated to the numerous and contradicting representations of Salome as a historical and legendary image. Beginning in medieval and post-medieval art (Lucas Cranach, Bernardino Luini, Guido Reni) the approach is disciplinary, including the visual arts, literature, music and film, as well as interrelations between these media. The transformations in the 19th century in literature (Heinrich Heine, Gustave Flaubert. J.-K. Huysmans and Stephane Mallarme) expand to the artists of the Salon (Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes) and manifested in a culmination in the Gesamtkunstwerk of Oscar Wilde, Richard Strauss and Aubrey Beardsley, merging theatre, music and the visual arts. The ongoing fame of the theme expanded in performances in music halls (Lois Fuller, Maud Allan, Mata Hari, Ida Rubinstein, Colette) to find a fascinating continuation in the new medium of film (Nazimova). The theme is analysed in its relevance for the contemporary situation of the position of women in the final chapter Unveiling Salome.

Edouard Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863, has always been seen as enigmatic. This essay argues that the painting's often noted studio atmosphere is one of several keys to seeing it in a new light as a highly idiosyncratic allegory of painting. Other keys to this reading include the indoor hats of the two men, the relaxed attitude of the nude, and the presence of a kind of painting within the painting. Related to this, the reclining pointer in the painting is seen as a stand-in for Manet himself in a way that is similar to other key works by Manet. Finally, the painting is also discussed in relation to paintings by Courbet, Cezanne and Seurat.

The first two hard-paste porcelain manufactories in Europe were established in Meissen(1710) and in Vienna(1718). In its early phase Viennese porcelain was at least as important as Meissen, and in this early period Vienna also played the leading role in the area of painted decoration. The recipe for the paste was not stolen from Meissen as it is always assumed, in Vienna a different chemical compound was used. A private individual, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, was the founder of the Viennese porcelain manufactory. In Meissen the ?owner? was the King of Poland, the Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong. He provided the necessary financial support for the Meissen manufactory, whereas in Vienna only a special privilege but no financial assistance was granted to Du Paquier's manufactory by Charles VI. Thus, as the production of porcelain is a very costly and risky venture, the Viennese manufactory was threatened by financial shortages throughout its existence, until in 1744 Du Paquier had to give up and his company was taken over by the state. Since Du Paquier's porcelain had no mark, and changing fashions made it no longer sought after, in the course of time Du Paquier's name and porcelain fell into complete oblivion. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that once again the attention was drawn to Du Paquier's porcelain. Unfortunately, very little was published since then. My aim in this short essay is to stress what an important role this porcelain played in Europe in the early 18th century and to demonstrate with the aid of photographs how very fascinating it is.

After a two-year stay at the Imperial Court of Maria Theresa and Francis I in Vienna (1763-1765), during which he proved his creative talents in a variety of media, Jean Pillement accepted the invitation of the newly elected King of Poland, Stanislaw August Poniatowski, to come to Warsaw in order to take on the post of court painter. It would prove to be an exacting appointment. The young King well educated and well travelled (he had sojourned at the courts of Dresden, Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, London and St. Petersburg) was a genuine lover of the arts, a discerning collector and strove to create an enlightened court by bringing to Warsaw architects, painters and sculptors, theatre, opera and ballet artists and generally create favourable conditions for learning, the arts and art collecting. This ambitious programme, however, placed on his artists stringent demands dictated by Stanislaw August according to his own vision of what he wished to be done. It was particularly tedious for such a free spirit like Pillement, but he obediently complied with the King's wishes by executing multiple orders not necessarily related to his art and ranging from the project of a royal monogram; a project of gondolas; another of Rococo wall brackets; sketches of paintings of history inspired by texts by Plutarch, Titus Livius and Suetonius presented according to the written descriptions of the King; furthermore, views of antique ruins after Piranesi: the Acqua Julia and the temple of Minerva Medici, both in Rome. And finally - patriotic Polish allegorical compositions. Mercifully, the King's orders included also topics in which Pillement excelled, namely Rococo wall decorations for the King's study and two pairs of large, superb panels for the royal summer residence of Ujazdow, which are now in the collection of the Petit Palais in Paris. Pillement also painted numerous pastoral landscapes for the king's private apartments. Four of them are used today as overdoors at the Royal Castle. Following the example of Stanislaw August, prominent aristocratic families, such as the Czartoryskis, the Branickis, the Potockis, the Sapiehas, the Zamoyskis and the Mniszechs also collected Pillement's drawings and paintings. In appreciation of Pillement's services, the King granted him a royal patent to the title of Premier Peintre du Roy (also appears spelled as Roi) de Pologne.

The cycle Life of Maria de' Medici painted by Peter Paul Rubens, which was executed by the artist for the Western Gallery in Palais du Luxemburg in Paris (1622-1625), was subject to political control, first and foremost by the entourage of the Queen Mother herself, and in the final stages also by King Louis XIII. One of the proofs of the existence of a system of control over the cycle are Rubens' bozzetto and modello for Disembarkation at Marseilles. The bozzetto, dated 1622, is in the collection of Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the modello - in a private collection and has not so far been described at length in literature. The modello was executed by Rubens; it may have been completed with the help of Rubens' then co-worker, Justus van Egmont. The sense of the changes in the composition of Disembarkation of Maria de' Medici at Marseilles (bozzetto - modello - painting) can be explained by the likely intervention of one of the clergymen (probably Abbe Saint-Ambroise) from the Queen Mother's immediate entourage. After the rejection of Rubens' original composition (bozzetto in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich), the artist had to paint another painting - modello (which by definition is larger in format than bozzetto and represents a greater degree of precision with regard to detail) in order to win the court's approval for the new composition. It is the only painting which exists in an intermediary format in-between a sketch (bozzetto) and a large-sized, monumental painting from the Louvre. The modello must have originated after the bozzetto; it was probably painted in Paris in May 1623, due to controversies which arose around the final version of The Disembarkation at Marseilles.

The serial structure of Andy Warhol's silkscreens articulates a dynamic structure of actualization of which anything is an instance, thus providing a model of how the mundane world comes to be, persists to be the same, but is always changing. His serial works enact iterative structures of free, synthetic, iterative self-realization, a rational process of the actualization of things. In making numerous depthless images identical, Warhol makes them different through obvious surface printing accidents, spontaneous traces of differentiating activity. They reveal the constructive activity irreducible to any element involved in making the series. This underivable activity is spontaneous, non-deterministic and free, but also relational because serial.