The basic monograph paper on the
sculptor Svetoslav Peruzzi was written by Bojana Hudales-Kori and published in
the Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino (Archives d'histoire de l'art) in 1970. She dated his
model for the headstone of Jan Lego in his Ljubljana period (ca 1908), but the
work is not listed in the catalogue raisonné of the sculptor's oeuvre. The only
mention of the work in the article reads like this: “At that time he made a
model for the headstone of Jan Lego, a Czech who was a great friend of the
Slovenes, and Slovenian students in particular. The headstone was set up in
Prague.”
Jan
Lego (1833–1906), pioneer of the Czech-Slovenian mutuality, was born on 14
September 1833 at Lhota near Zbirov in Bohemia and died on 17 September 1906 in
Prague. In 1857 he got employed with the district court office in Kamnik, and
the next year with the provincial government in Ljubljana, both in Slovenia.
In 1860 he left for Trieste to work with the Provincial Government, from where
he was moved to the Maritime Ministry in Vienna two years later. In 1872 he was
summoned to work in the arsenal in Pula, today Croatia, after which he returned
to Bohemia for good. He became a curator of copperplate engravings and sheet
music in the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Lego was an amateur researcher
of the Slovenian musical past, participated in the development of musical
production in Slovenia and was among the co-founders of the organisations of
Slovenian musical life. He was also responsible for the establishment of the
Slavic National Reading Room in Trieste. He initiated the marking of Slovenian
mountain trails, participated in the founding of the Slovenian and Czech
Mountaineering Societies and made a significant contribution to strengthening
Czech-Slovenian links. Lego was always in close contact with, among others, the
Ljubljana mayor Ivan Hribar (1851-1941) and the poets Simon Gregorčič
(1844-1906) and Anton Aškerc (1856-1912).
The
sculptor Svetoslav Peruzzi executed the decoration in bronze for Lego's
headstone which was erected in the Olšanské hřbitovy cemetery in Prague. Lego's tombstone is decorated with a square
bronze plaque with a low portrait relief of the deceased in the left profile.
Peruzzi's strong realism is apparent in the strong but benevolent facial
features of the sitter, with his slightly upturned nose, neat beard and
moustache, and the hinted wrinkles on his forehead and deep-set eye. The
portrait is one of the artist's early realist works and does not significantly
break out of the framework of late-historicist tomb art. On either side of the headstone,
a bronze laurel wreath with a mourning decorative ribbon is 'hung' on a stone
handle, which wraps over the lantern at the foot. The back of the stone
tombstone is unadorned. Among Peruzzi's tombstones from the beginning of the
century, the Lego’s one stands out as the only one in the design of portrait
relief.
The sculpture collection of the
National Gallery of Slovenia contains a plaster design of the tombstone with a
distinctive portrait relief of Jan Lego. In the final version, the sculptor did
not decide to include the upper part of the draft with the heads of the
symbolic figures representing friendship and the strong bond between the
Slovenian and Czech nations. The work has previously been incorrectly
attributed to Ivan Zajec in the documentation of the National Gallery.
It is reasonable to date the setting
up of the headstone in the year of Lego’s death late in 1906 or in 1907, but initially
without his portrait. The headstone was subsequently publicly opened “with a
large attendance of Slovenian guests” on 29 June 1911, meaning that the relief
was only included a few years after the drafting. The greatest credit for
Lego’s headstone went to Andrej Gabršček (1864–1938), a teacher, publisher, editor and
translator fromCzech, who devoted himself to Slavic culture. Gabršček
was active in newspaper organisations, helped found the Slavic Journalists'
Association in Prague, and reported at the All-Slavic Congress in Prague in
1908. He described his encounter with Lego in 1887 in his book Goriški Slovenci (Slovenians of Gorizia)
as follows: “The report from Trieste was supplied by
me, since I was everywhere at that time, at the invitation of Jan Lego, with
whom I had been in an epistolary correspondence for some years, but at that
time an opportunity arouse for us to meet in person. When I returned to
Kobarid, I had to send to Lego in Prague two pallets, of five kilos each, of
seeds of our mountain grasses, so that he could scatter them in the Czech
forests and meadows, saying: this is how the Slovenian and Czech flora should
merge. – Can you think of a greater idealist? And in my mind I saw the
venerable Jan Lego, in a tourist shirt, hat-less and with his sleeves rolled up
like Jakopič's "Sower", scattering our mountain grasses over the
Czech forests, praying a prayer of Slovenian-Czech twinning.”
Peruzzi’s headstone relief was a
present of grateful Slovenes to the Czech friends.