TWO PRINTS BY LEONTY BUNIN IN THE 18TH CENTURY SERBIAN GRAPHIC

Abstract

The article is devoted to two engravings depicting Jesus Christ and the Mother of God in lush ornamental cartouches. They are well known to Serbian art critics and are published in the catalogs of Serbian metal engravings of the 18th century. Copper engraved boards of these engravings, which Serbian researchers attribute to the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century, are preserved in the Krka Monastery. Prints from them of the 18th-19th centuries are unknown in Serbian collections. In Serbia, the first prints from these boards were made in the 20th century. However, prints from these engravings were well known in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. They were primarily used as illustrations in Russian manuscript books. The engravings were made by a Russian master at the end of the 17th century. According to the features of engraving, manner, and stylistics, they can be attributed to Moscow engraver Leonty Bunin. In Russian manuscripts, they were usually used as illustrations in the book The Passion of Christ along with the 14-sheet series The Passion of Christ by Leonty Bunin. Cases of using them as independent illustrations are known. In the 1730s, these engravings disappeared from the illustrations in The Passion of Christ series in Russian manuscript books. Their later prints are unknown in Russia. The history of their appearance in Serbia, in the Krka Monastery, remains unknown. Perhaps they appeared there as gifts from Russia which the monastery regularly received. In the 18th century, Serbian religious art experienced a powerful influence from Dutch graphics. As iconographic sources, Serbian masters used Flemish and Dutch engravings of the 16th and 17th centuries. They were the same ones that were used by Russian masters of the 17th century, especially of the second half of the century, as iconographic examples. The identity of the artistic processes that took place in the art of Serbia in the 18th century and Russia of the 17th century turned out to be so close that Serbian art historians regarded the Russian prints of the 17th century by Leonty Bunin as Serbian works of an unknown engraver of the late 17th - early 19th centuries. The biography of Leonty Bunin is considered in detail in the article, some facts of his life are presented for the first time.