Signed and dated p. d.: W. Podkowiński / 1885
Provenance:
private collection, Austria
The work has museum glass.
A collector's rarity, a work painted by a mere 19-year-old Podkowiński, offered at public auction for the first time. It's delightful how the young artist skillfully builds the composition and uses chiaroscuro with great sensitivity. The painting is also distinguished by its interesting color scheme. The rather wide frame used by the painter, includes the figures of Russian guards in summer uniforms, being at the head of the troop and the picturesque forest road. The themes of the work correspond with other works of the painter from this period . As a student of the Warsaw Drawing Class, he was under the tutelage of if only an outstanding representative of academism and realism - Wojciech Gerson. The painting "Officers of the Czars" was created a year after the end of this stage of his education. In 1885 or 1886 the artist goes further to St. Petersburg, where he continues his education in the studio of the battle artist Bogdan Willewalde. However, this turned out to be a rather short stop for the artist on his way to Paris. In the year of the creation of the offered painting, Podkowiński begins creating original illustrations for magazines: "Kłosy", "Tygodnik Ilustrowany", "Wędrowiec" (before that they were mainly copies of paintings). He also devotes more and more time to oil painting.
This beautiful painting brings knowledge of the artist's early work, workshop skills, favorite motifs. This is Podkowiński before Impressionism, before Symbolism, before he embarked on a great artistic, though tragically short, career. Nevertheless, the work is not artistically inferior to more famous compositions or themes and styles characteristic of the later period.
