Sensational find in Ternopil

An important event took place recently at the Ternopil Oblast Regional History Museum. Vira Stetsko, a well-known art specialist and author of more than 200 articles and studies on Baroque sculpture, announced a sensational discovery. Researchers have located the main part of a roadside statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary designed by Johann Pinzel in 1751 and the head of a statue that once adorned the unique town hall in Buchach.

In 1751 Bernard Meretin and Johann Pinzel built the town hall, one of the finest examples of Rococo architecture in Europe, on the central square of Buchach. The building was adorned with 16 statues. Researchers believe that Pinzel thus immortalized the 12 labors of Hercules. Unfortunately, after a fire in 1865 only six statues were left intact. Today, prior to restoration, one of the discovered heads from the Buchach town hall is stored in the museum, where it is being studied.

Stetsko, who took part in the expeditions lead by Academician Borys Viznytsky to explore the architectural complexes of Buchach, Monastyrska, Budaniv (formerly called Budzaniv), and Rukomysh, is convinced that they have discovered authentic monuments that were previously believed lost. In the postwar years the Soviet authorities vandalized almost all the roadside “bourgeois” statues, including those of St. John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pinzel’s first works in Buchach. The only part that is left of the statues is the pedestal. Local residents used to hide the statues’ heads, which they picked up at night after the barbarous Soviet destruction.

Last year the western Ukrainian regions honored Pinzel, a great but forgotten genius of sculpture, by conducting educational work and searches in which local residents participated. Some fragments of Pinzel’s sculptures are stored in the Roman Catholic church in Buchach.