In Przemyśl, conservation work has been completed on the façade of a tenement house at 24 Grunwaldzka Street, during which advertising decorations and signs dating from the 19th century were restored. The inscriptions and striped painting decoration were discovered during renovation work and are located on the ground floor of the building’s front façade
The newly discovered advertising inscriptions and decoration in the form of diagonally formed stripes in yellow and black, attributed to the Austrian imperial Habsburg family, may also confirm the dating of the oldest advertising inscriptions, where the tavern was located
Photo: Arsem Conservation of Works of Art
It was established that the oldest decoration was connected to the oldest stratigraphic layer of plaster and was formally connected to the tavern run in the tenement, to which the now non-existent entrance led. The boniae bore majuscule inscriptions in black paint on a background of diagonal stripes. If the black lettering fell on the black background of the stripes, then the stripes were slightly lightened in this area. It was possible to establish that to the left of the former entrance to the premises in a vertical arrangement was advertised
PIWO
PILZNEŃSKIE
OKOCIMSKIE
KRASICZYŃSKIE
On the right side
WYSZYNK
VARIOUS BEVERAGES
and BEER
FLASH
The conservation was carried out by Arsem Conservation of Works of Art and financed by the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Przemyśl. After conservation and appropriate exposure, the inscriptions enrich the history of the city of Przemyśl. It is an interesting historical advertisement for a bar – a tavern with beer, including the now defunct Krasiczynski and other beverages from the late 19th century
Decorations and signs before and after restoration. Photo: Arsem Conservation of Works of Art
On the same façade, another advertisement exists to the left of the tavern advertisement, also painted on the boniae of the front façade. During the same period or slightly later, there was also another commercial activity in the tenement, as evidenced by inscriptions in red made in majuscule and minuscule in Polish and Yiddish. Advertised here
In Polish
ALL UTENSILS
for EQUIPMENT
ALSO
various types of
WASHES
On the lowest boni, however, an inscription in Yiddish. The words that we managed to decipher with the help of experts in that language are
הארט אונד אײנצעל
פעטראלעאום קערצע
צו דען בילליגסטען
Which can be translated thus
“wholesale and retail (probably “sale” – here part of the word is missing) of
paraffin lamps
at the lowest (probably “prices” – part of the word is also missing here)
The state of preservation before conservation of the decoration and inscriptions was good enough to be mostly deciphered and completed. The plasterwork had a tendency to fall off and there were numerous losses of both mortar and polychrome. In the course of conservation, the polychromy was cleaned, underlaid, cavities were filled and the paint layer was retouched. In this way, Przemyśl gained another priceless monument
Source: Arsem Conservation
See also: Facade | Metamorphosis | Renovation | Monument | Interesting facts
