Coffin portrait of Zygmunt Tarło

In Poland, the “multifaceted beauty” of European Baroque art found particular expression in the coffin portrait. Such likenesses emerged in the Commonwealth in connection with the burial ceremony, which in Old Polish culture was extremely stately in order to accentuate the exceptionality of the end of earthly existence. This approach was linked with a comprehension of death as a supplement to life and a moment of passage to another world. The importance of that moment and respect for the deceased required a suitable setting. A so-called castrum doloris (castle of grief) specially erected in a church, was composed of a catafalque supporting the coffin with a portrait of the deceased and specially designed for the occasion architecture in the form of a tent or a pyramid decorated with allegorical symbols. One of the elements of the embellishment was a realistic portrait of the ”dead person” gazing directly at the participants of the ceremony, as if the deceased was personally attending the funeral. The likeness was affixed to the shorter side of the coffin and hence, as a rule, was in the shape of a hexagon or an octagon. It was painted on sheet metal, usually copper or pewter, and subsequently put on display in the church or buried together with the deceased.