The opening of the exhibition will take place on April 10 at 7 p.m. The ceremonial opening will feature a welcome speech by Blaž Peršin, Director of the Museum and Galleries of the City of Ljubljana, and Ana Pokrajac Iskra, the exhibition’s author and Senior Curator at the Fine Arts Department of the City Museum of Ljubljana.  

Križ Manor in Komenda was badly damaged by fire during the Second World War. Afterwards, the entire structure gradually deteriorated, with the result that there is practically nothing left of it today. However, a number of its frescoes were removed and are now kept at the City Museum of Ljubljana and the National Gallery of Slovenia.

We know from the year next to the painter’s signature that the frescoes in the hall were created by the painter Joseph Mayr in 1731. At that time, Križ Manor was owned by Count Anton Joseph Auersperg (1696-1762), who soon began its restoration. He must have envisioned a grand room that would glorify his family. The decor consisted of 12 large allegorical or historical scenes. The frescoes can best be studied with the aid of private notes and a published topographic description of the Kamnik area compiled before the war by the leading Slovenian art historian, France Stele, along with photographs taken by Stele and Fran Šijanec. Of those mentioned by Stele, some fragments survived the fire and could be detached from the walls; there are also parts of the frescoes that we can only imagine from Stele’s descriptions and the photographs.

Of the two major scenes, only fragments of one are preserved: the Battle of Sisak with Andreas von Auersperg on horseback. The fresco on the opposite wall depicted the 1728 act of Hereditary Homage, in which the Carniolan Provincial Estates swore their allegiance to Emperor Charles VI. In 1728. Of the four depictions of the seasons, Spring (in the form of Flora) and Autumn (in the form of Bacchus) have been preserved, while Summer and Winter can only be imagined on the basis of Stele’s descriptions. Between the doors and the corners of the hall, on relatively high, narrow panels, there were four allegorical scenes. Unfortunately, only one of these has survived: Lactation, depicting a woman directing a stream of milk from her breast into the eyes of a man reclining alongside a plough. This could be a personification of nature, the church, grammar or poetry; alternatively, the stream of her milk could represent the divine wisdom that nourishes heretics. The image might even be of the goddess Demeter, who gave Triptolemus her breast milk. Another scene depicted Endymion, a handsome shepherd or hunter, being visited and kissed by Luna (the goddess Diana) while he is sleeping. Two other scenes, according to Stele’s descriptions, conveyed a rather frivolous baroque atmosphere.To the left and right of the main entrance to the hall were two allegorical scenes. Fortunately, the one of a woman with a helmet and spear has been preserved and is currently on display in The Baroque in Slovenia exhibition at the National Gallery. The attributes used by the artist to identify the figures in the images suggest that their meaning may be connected with the seven Liberal Arts.

Their full meaning is not yet known but, after several years of careful work by restorer Saša Snoj, the images that once adorned the main hall of Križ Manor are now fully restored and being exhibited as an ensemble for the first time.