Signed l.d.: Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz
Return from Hunting is one of Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz's striking, highly decorative works from his early period. Both the manner of painting and the subject matter of the painting point to the artist's years spent in Munich. The scene echoes the work of Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, a compatriot extremely popular in the Bavarian capital. His - of great interest to collectors and marchands - winter sledges, wolf attacks depicted in a vast landscape, or quiet winter nocturnes, could not have been without influence on the young Ajdukiewicz at the threshold of his painting career. The scene on display refers to the motif of returning from a hunt, popular in the works of Vierusz.
The presented painting shows the hand of a mature artist, aware of his talent and skills. The painting is painted with confidence, with great care in rendering the smallest details. In addition to attention to reality, striking is the excellent characterization of the figures of the coachman, the unleashed dogs and the horse, brilliantly captured in motion. From under the hooves of the unleashed steed fly clods of snow, whose white coating begins to turn gray in the falling dusk. The depiction of the horse at full gallop, with its mane unraveling and hooves detached from the ground, and the dogs keeping pace with it, gives the whole scene a dynamic feel. The contrast to their haste is the lazily setting sun, partially submerged in clouds, which has spilled a palette of warm pink colors across the sky. All this gives an extremely interesting effect of suspending the action.
Ajdukiewicz exposed and brilliantly captured the details of the scene taking place in the foreground. On a straw-lined sleigh, we see a man wearing a fur hat and leather gloves, accompanied by two hunting dogs lying nearby. Both the decorative clasp of the coat and the whip hanging from the rush of air are small elements that contribute to the dynamics of the entire composition. The sound of bells hanging from the horse's array, accompanied by the thud of hooves, echoes in the viewer's ears. All this betrays the masterful hand of Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz.
Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz (Witkowice near Tarnobrzeg 1861 - Vienna 1917) began studying painting at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow. He then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1880-1882) and the Academy in Munich (1883-1885), including under Johann C. Herterich. After his studies, he lived permanently in Vienna, from where he left for Paris in 1893. Like his cousin, Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz, he was a painter of court and aristocratic circles. He painted portraits, as well as historical and genre paintings; military, fair or hunting scenes, in which "certain historical-step customs from the borderlands of old Poland" were reflected. Described by a contemporary reviewer as a "horseman-landscape artist," he had "a lot of ideas that were broad and supremely graceful." For the imperial palace in Vienna he made a series of paintings illustrating the story of the Golden Fleece, and in 1891 he painted a series of 12 paintings with scenes from the life of Tadeusz Kosciuszko (published as an album by F. Bondy in Vienna in 1892). He was also involved in book illustration; among other things, he illustrated Sienkiewicz's The Deluge. He exhibited from 1882; at TPSP in Cracow, at TZSP and Krywult Salon in Warsaw, in Lvov, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Prague. His paintings were awarded medals, including a grand gold medal at the Vienna exhibition in 1891 and a second-class gold medal in Berlin, a second-class gold medal in Vienna in !898, and a silver medal in Lvov in 1894. Today, the artist's works are in the collections of numerous Polish museums, including the National Museums of Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw, the State Art Collections in Wawel and the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom.
