Tombstone of Katarzyna Markowska

The Markowski family’s tombstone, the so-called “lying maiden”, is one of the most famous monuments in Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. The full-plastic sculpture depicts a dying, beautiful young woman lying on a bed – Katarzyna Markowska, who was a Lvov actress and the wife of Ludwik Markowski, a clerk, court assistant. Everything indicates that she is a seriously ill person. The duvet, which is profusely folded and partially slipping off the bed, the hair scattered on the pillow, all seem to indicate that the woman is sleeping a nervous sleep, throwing herself on the bedclothes. This is a sculpture of high quality.

The creator of this work was the very talented Lvov sculptor Julian Markowski (1846-1903), a January insurgent and friend of the painter Artur Grottger. Markowski learned his craft from Parys Filippi. From 1870, on Piekarska Street, close to the Lychakiv Cemetery, he ran his own stone-sculpture workshop and made mainly tomb monuments, but also monuments, decorative sculpture and statues for public buildings, made in the style of academic historicism.