Tadeusz AJDUKIEWICZ (1852-1916), Divination - In a village chamber, 1887

oil, canvas; 71 x 109.5 cm;
Signed and dated l. d.: Th./A/887 (monogram).

PROVENANCE:
Hampel Auction House (09.2004);
Rempex Auction House (18.05.2005);
Private collection.

Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, to continue his education at the Vienna Academy. From 1875 he stayed in Munich, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts under Otto Seitz and Alexander Wagner and attended the studio of Jozef Brandt. The artist traveled extensively, including to Ukraine, the Balkans, Constantinople, Egypt to the Middle East and England, where he portrayed the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. He was mainly involved in portrait painting. Like other artists in his circle, Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz also succumbed to a fascination with the Middle East, so he painted genre, borderland and oriental scenes.
Around 1883 he settled in Vienna, where he received a studio after Hans Makart. It was then that he created images of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and heir to the throne Archduke Rudolf. In 1896 he worked in Sofia, then in Bucharest, and in 1899 at the Czar's court in St. Petersburg. Around 1904
he moved to Romania, where he became a court painter.
The artist owned an estate in Bonarka near Krakow, where he raised horses and which he often visited.
The offered canvas "Divination - In a Country House," created in 1887, may be a reminiscence of a village near Krakow, as evidenced by the clothes of the women portrayed and the modesty of the country house. Gathered around a table, the young girls with vivid facial expressions listen to an older figure with her back turned to the viewer, who is fortune-telling.
to the viewer to a figure fortune-telling from cards. The encounter was probably accompanied by much laughter and shouting, as may be evidenced by the figure of a curious young man hidden behind the door. In the museum's collection, in addition to the famous portrait of actress Helena Modrzejewska or "Self-Portrait with Palette," there are
images of highlanders by the painter's brush (cf. MP 1953 MNW, MP 876 MNW).