St. Mark's Church, 1900; In lower left corner signature on stone: J.S. At bottom right in circle inscription: LIFE. Original color lithograph, 1900, measuring 15.5 x 16 cm, framed 38.5 x 33 cm.
The lithograph shows a fragment of the facade of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. It was included in the Cracow biweekly Życie [Year IV, z. 1, 1900, after p. 28]. This was, incidentally, the last issue of the biweekly, as the publishing house announced a break in its publication, "due to difficult material conditions." This illustrated periodical devoted to literature and art, edited by Stanislaw Przybyszewski, had already published, as illustrations, lithographs by Jan Stanislawski (No. 6 of 1899: The Orchard and the Cottage). The above graphic in the magazine was protected by a blotting sheet, on which was an explanation: Jan Stanislawski | Saint Mark's Church - five-color lithograph.
Jan Stanislawski (1860-1907) painter, leading representative of symbolism in Polish landscape painting. Born in 1860 in Olshan, Ukraine, died in 1907 in Krakow. From 1887 he was a professor at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts and one of the founders of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka", established in 1897 in Cracow. He left few graphic works, mostly lithographs and woodcuts. Stanislawski cooperated with Aureliusz Pruszyński's Art Department, there he developed and reflected his lithographs also published in Warsaw's "Chimera" and commissioned by Feliks Jasieński for the portfolio of the Association of Graphic Artists in 1903. It was the only workshop that assisted artists who began working on autolithography.