Description
Pencil, paper; 35 x 23.5 cm
Signed p.d.: 26/2 883; trace of an erased word
Exhibited, reproduced: Anna Król, Henryk Rodakowski, National Museum in Cracow, 1994, po. II.354
Asking price 3000
Estimate 4000 - 5000
Henryk RODAKOWSKI
1823 Lviv -1894 Cracow
He was educated in Vienna, and in 1846-1850 in Paris under L.Cogniet. He stayed in Paris for a longer period of time, and after returning to Poland he lived in the Pałahicze estate, later in Lviv and nearby Bortniki. In 1889 he moved to Vienna, later to Zakopane and Krakow, where he became director of the School of Fine Arts in 1894. He was an outstanding portrait painter. He gained fame with his debut at the Paris Salon of 1852 where he received a large gold medal for his Portrait of General Dembinski. He also achieved success a year later with the exhibition of Portrait of his Mother, a painting that Delacroix himself called "a true masterpiece." The artist also painted historical and, less frequently, genre paintings.