This book on the multiple places and positionings of 'foreign' things and how they became 'local' in the art, and visual and material culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early modern period is the first publication of its type. While the author applies the most recent theoretical frameworks of research in the history of art to analyse the multi-layered nature of artistic phenomena, the book is dedicated to the Polish art historian Tadeusz Mańkowski (1878-1956), signalling a fascination for (and critical engagement with) research methods applied over half a century ago. In Poland, Mańkowski, a pre-war lawyer, professor of art history and collector with special expertise on portrait painting as well as militaria, fabrics and rugs, set the very first directions for research on art and artifacts from outside Central Europe and their local integration and appropriation, culminating in exhibitions and a conference in Krakow in the 1980s and 1990s organized by his successors. [1, 2]

At the beginning of his book, Tomasz Grusiecki clarifies terminological issues (e.g., related to expressions like 'origin' and 'provenance', 'cultural belonging' and 'transculturation') and introduces key figures in relation to their geographical and historical contexts, thereby equipping the reader with the necessary knowledge and background to follow the complex arguments he presents in the subsequent chapters. The author also explicitly draws on the language dominant in the multi-ethnic country, i.e. Polish, emphasizing, however, that he is not entirely consistent, choosing, for example, to write the names of key Ukrainian figures in Ukrainian - a reasonable and very understandable decision.

The introduction to the book highlights Georg Kolschitzky (also known under his Polish name Kulczycki and its Ukrainian equivalent Kulchytsky), who allegedly founded the first coffee house in Vienna after the Battle of Vienna in 1683 (an urban myth that Grusiecki thoughtfully dismantles). Grusiecki uses this example to highlight questions of identity as well as patterns and recent changes in the historiography of art, and visual and material culture of Poland-Lithuania.

The first chapter of the book examines the myth of the origin of the Polish aristocracy from the Sarmatians (who modern historians and archaeologist have identified as an Iranian people) that was so well developed by the 17th century that many representatives of the nobility believed in the ancient origins of the nation living on the Vistula. Grusiecki provides highly insightful discussions of maps from the period that feature the mythical Sarmatia that early moderns traced back to ancient sources like Ptolemy's treatise Geographia. His examinations rely not only on preserved maps in extant collections, but Grusiecki also aptly reminds us of maps that were lost during the war and are known to us only from old photographs. Dismantling notions of 'Sarmantism' by historical figures such as Adam Kisiel and historians like Christoph Hartknoch and Marcin Bielski, this chapter addresses processes of myth building related to the "Roxolanian land" by nobility, writers and theologians. Examples of connections between Polish-language literature in Kyiv and the ancient Roman and Greek tradition are countless, ranging from Peter Mohyla's self-staging as Apollo to Ivan Mazepa's self-fashioning as Hercules, and were particularly important in the circle of Chernihiv Athens authors at the end of the 17th century [3], visible in Lazar Baranovych's writings and also reflected in Ukrainian art during the era of Ivan Mazepa. Grusiecki dissects the multiple ways in which Polish-Lithuanian historical geography underwent Sarmatization to show that this "in fact supported the Europeanization of the polity's invented tradition" (15), demonstrating a past recorded by classical sources comparable to that of the Latin and Germanic peoples, a process deeply entangled with developments in the arts.

In Chapter Two Grusiecki moves to fashion and the adoption of Ottoman costume by representatives of the aristocracy living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who dressed similarly regardless of their individual religious and ethnic affiliations. The first ruler to dress in this style, King Stefan Batory, was followed closely by his successors while representatives of the Swedish dynasty, Vasa, Sigismund III, Władysław IV and John Casimir, officially wore "old Polish" costumes in the Ottoman manner although dressing in Western style in private. Portraits and representations of historical events offer insights into the diversity of the costumes that formed a testimony to the community among all aristocrats living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland who were equal regardless of origin and religious affiliation when they sat alongside each other in the Sejm. In addition to the thoughtfully laid out questions on style and self-Orientalization, tensions between Christian politics and Islamic fashion that Grusiecki carefully answers, it may also be worth considering connections between costume and climate change as the 17th century winters were harsher than those of the early 16th century and may, on some levels, have also informed sartorial changes.

Chapter Three turns to the performance of the idea of Poland- Lithuania abroad via the Polish king's delegations of representatives sent to Rome and Paris. Grusiecki draws on the engravings by Stefano della Bella that depict Jerzy Ossoliński's entry into Rome in 1633 and Krzysztof Opaliśński's entry into Paris in 1645, the latter preserved in the form of sketches for a large graphic composition, which the Italian presumably never finished. Based on visual documentations like those by della Bella, eye witness records by a nobleman, probably Piotr Daniłowicz, and others, and a previously unknown copperplate engraving by Francois Campion showing the arrival of the Polish embassy, Grusiecki uses depictions of the events of 1633 and 1649 to counter previous historiographers' findings that reduce the Ottomanizing vocabulary, clothing and weaponry of the Polish nobility to an example of "demi-Orientalism - devised to understand the mechanisms of power and knowledge production by and for Western Europe in the modern era". (136) Instead, Grusiecki highlights the agency of and active choices by early modern Poles in a complex process of cultural negotiations through interaction.

Chapter Four addresses the long-admired so-called tapis polonais or tapisserie polonaise that have been preserved in several collections around the world. Predominantly created in Iran and first exhibited in Paris in 1878, those carpets that once belonged to the collection of the Polish aristocrat Władysław Czartoryski were considered Polish products. It was not until the 20th century that their place of origin was questioned and more properly examined. Discussing extant examples and masterfully scrutinizing their histories of research, Grusiecki also addresses locally produced carpets referring to the research of Tadeusz Mańkowski. He hereby identifies a gap in research which, with the exception of Aleksandra J. Kasprzak's "Ars Armeniaka" exhibition catalogue from 2010 (that identifies a set of carpets with the coats of arms of Pilawa and Kończyce and determines their places of origin) [4], has stagnated since the work of Mańkowski and Konstancja Stępkowska. While the archives of Ukraine and Belarus may hold further important information, it could also be fruitful for future research to apply Grusiecki's insights and lines of inquiry to analyse carpets made in Transylvania, which were widely collected but identified as products of the Ottoman Empire.

In his epilogue, Grusiecki presents us with a particularly important group of examples of Tatar mosques, including the one at Kruszyniany in Poland, which we know today mainly from iconographic sources (namely engravings by Tomasz Makowski) that show this small ethnic group had mosques in Trakai and other cities throughout Lithuania at the beginning of the 17th century, the oldest of which have not survived due to their easily flammable wooden structures.

Tomasz Grusiecki's book is an invaluable foundation for future research. It will arouse keen interest not only withing English-speaking academia, but also in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It weaves a number of highly important threads into the fabric of the historiography of art, and visual and material culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I highly recommend this beautifully illustrated and exceptionally well-written and well-researched book to scholars, students and non-academic readers and sincerely hope that more English language publications on the history and material heritage of places like Vistula, Bug and Vilnia will follow.

Notes:

[1] Beata Biedrońska-Słota (ed.): Orient w sztuce Polskiej, ex. cat. Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Kraków 1992.

[2] Orient i Orientalizm w sztuce. Materiały z sesji Stowarzyszenia Historyków Sztuki, Kraków, grudzień 1983, Warszawa 1986.

[3] Anatoliy Makarov (ed): Чернігівські Афіни, Київ (Kyiv) 2002.

[4] Aleksandra J. Kasprzak: O herbach Pilawa i Kończyc na kobiercach z manufaktur Potockich, in: Ars Armeniaca. Sztuka orńiańska ze zbiorów polskich i ukraińskich, ex. cat. Muzeum Zamojskie, ed. by Waldemar Deluga, Zamość 2010, 117-122.

Waldemar Józef Deluga