Gateway to the past

Original Watercolour Artwork – 56 x 38 cm (22 x 15 inch)
Very good quality Arches paper

*this artwork will be shipped in a tube

Give me an old wall and a piece of paper. 👩🏻‍🎨
I cherish everything that is authentic and has a story to tell.
“Gate to the Past” reveals a fragment of the ruins of a church in Jelna, near Bistrita, Romania. “A gem among the weeds? A Hungarian historian thinks he discovered a rare ancient copy of a mosaic by Italian artist Giotto in the remains of a lost church at the far end of Transylvania, Romania.

Abandoned for several decades and completely dilapidated, the old Protestant temple in the small town of Jelna, 430 kilometers from Bucharest, is nothing more than a ruin beaten by rain and wind. But during a visit in 2014, Szilard Papp’s attention was drawn to a few discolored fresco fragments. His research confirmed his intuition: according to him, it is an ancient and hitherto ignored copy of Giotto’s famous Navicella mosaic.

Built during the second half of the 14th century by a Germanic Catholic community, the church of Jelna had been repainted in white after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, which may have contributed to the fresco falling into oblivion. ‘historien. Several other ancient frescoes have already been discovered in ruined churches in Transylvania since the fall of communism in 1989.