Reconstruction of a Romanesque Lintel

The plaster cast is a reconstruction of the left, no longer extant, section of a Romanesque lintel. The image of the dragon was recreated using the visible surviving fragments – parts of the feet and snout – of the original left section of the bas-relief. The rest of the figure is a reversed copy of the right side of the carving. The present reconstruction of the lintel, which is situated above a portal in the Wawel Cathedral, was made by placing the cast (1970) of the surviving right side of the lintel and the newly recreated cast (2015) of the left side together in opposition. The 2015 cast was made based on research by and in consultation with Beata Kwiatkowska-Kopka. The previous attempt at reconstruction was a drawing of the entire portal presented in an exhibition at the Historical Museum of the City of Krakow in 2006.