Mezi reklamou a komemorací : signatury slezských malířů v období baroka

The article discusses the signatures of painters active in the Silesian region during the Baroque period. Signatures were seen as a kind of commercial registered trade mark, or also as a kind of advertisement for the artist and his workshop. It was also one of the means by which artists hoped to gain recognition on the local artistic market: in Silesia, one of the wealthiest regions of Central Europe, this promotional strategy was used by a whole series of artists of various nationalities who had arrived in the region, and eventually local artists also had to react to this challenge. Through their signatures, too, the artists stressed the intellectual side of their work, giving information about their own share in the conception of the work that was signed. Silesian painters sometimes also saw their signature as a kind of personal statement – it could for example be used to express their personal relationship to the scene that was painted. Many artists further saw their signature as a means of preserving their name in the memory of future generation.