St. Hedwig Church in Chicago, inside [Polish parishes and churches in Chicago] – (Adolphus Druiding) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Adolphus Druiding

Date: 1901

Museum: POLONIKA The National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad (Warszawa, Poland)

Technique: Photography

Inside the church there is a good quality, architectural, partly wood carved and gilded main altar. In 1913 the Daprato company made two more (the Mother of God and the Heart of Jesus) using the polychrome mass technique. The stained-glass windows from 1915, made by Franz Xaver Zettler’s workshop in Munich, are very interesting. They contain scenes from the lives of saints, including the patron saints of Poland. The particularly interesting depictions among the latter include the farewell between St. Hedwig of Silesia and her son Henry II the Pious before the Battle of Legnica against the Mongols and the baptism of Lithuania in the presence of Ladislaus Jagiello and St. Hedwig the Queen. These two scenes emphasized Poland’s unique place in Europe as a bulwark and a country with a missionary responsibility. The paintings in the arms of the transept are the Resurrection of Christ, which was an emblematic representation of the Resurrectionist Congregation, and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The stained-glass windows, installed probably in 1925, were made by a lesser-known Polish-American company “L. H. BORUCKI & CO”.