This is old view of the famous Slovenian monastery Kostanjevica in Götz ( in Italian: Goritzia) , the town on the Slovenian-Italian border .

The Kostanjevica Monastery (Castagnavizza in Italian) with the Church of the Annunciation lies on a 143 m high cliff above Nova Gorica, the Slovenian part of the city of Gorizia. In 1985 the monastery, monastery library and church were declared a monument of art and architecture and thus belong to the protected cultural heritage of Slovenia.

During the First World War, the church was destroyed during the fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary on the Isonzo from 1916 to 1917. It was rebuilt between 1924 and 1929 with restoration of stucco work and frescoes. That explains why  our watercolor, painted in  1918, doesn't include the ruined church.

The author of this watercolour is famous Bosnian painter Petar Šain  (Mostar, B&H, 1885 – Sarajevo, B&H, 1965)

Trained in the lithography  craft at the studio of Rožnakovski in Zagreb (1900-1903), and then spent two years at the Graphic Institute in Vienna. Also lived in Munich (1904/05), then in the studio of A. Mucha in Paris (1905/06) and afterwards worked as a drawer at the Geographical Institute in Vienna (1906-1909). From 1909 to 1913, he studied sculpting and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. During the World War I, he was mobilized as a military painter/reporter. He is the most important animalist in the history of arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He worked as a professor of the Secondary Technical School and the School for Applied Arts in Sarajevo. His retrospective exhibition was opened in March 1989 at the National Gallery of BiH in Sarajevo.

Literature: exhibition calataloque of the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

inscription: in German lower left : ” S.Sain, Görz, 25.1.1918, Kloster Castagnavizza die Grabstätte der Bourbonen”; lower right is the stamp of the collection Graninger

Measurements: image w 12 5/8” x h 9” ( 32 x 23 cm),  matted and framed w 20 5/8” x h 17 1/8” (52,5 x 43,5 cm)

Technique: watercolour on paper, Gallery frame.

Condition: very good.