Dimensions: 232 × 155 cm
purchase, 1969
inv. no. MP 562 MNW
Adoption period: 1 year
Biography
In an unfinished composition created in July 1914, Jacek Malczewski depicted a young woman leaning against a well spool, looking ahead with a smile. Perhaps she sees someone close in the distance and is waiting for a weary wanderer or an exile returning from Siberia to offer her a sip of cold, refreshing water. Indeed, on the beam that supports the canopy over the well hangs a brown and green cloak that resembles a military chinchilla, one of the artist's favorite props.
The image of the well with figures standing by it was taken by Malczewski from the iconographic tradition of the subject of the conversation between Christ and the Samaritan woman (Gospel According to St. John, 4). The painter may also have been inspired by the myth of Narcissus told in Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Still another interpretation of the subject refers to ancient beliefs relating to the source of life and living water.
The young woman, boldly looking ahead, can also be interpreted as Polonia. Malczewski, like most Poles, was hopeful about the growing political conflict of the partitioning states in the summer of 1914. If so, the painting would therefore have patriotic overtones.
The painting remained unfinished probably due to the outbreak of World War I and the artist's departure for Vienna in October 1914. The present, secondary title, encourages a multiplicity of interpretations and arbitrary analyses, which nevertheless fit into the visual narrative of the entire oeuvre of Jacek Malczewski. The motif of the well and the spring has been taken up many times by the artist.
