LEWICKI Jan Nepomucen - Collection of Polish antiquities in Paris, by Adolf Cichowski [ca 1850]. Etching.
Mezzotint, etching, paper. Dimensions of arc. 36.5x27.5 cm. Graphic signed on fawn medr. d. "J. Lewicki pinx et sc.". Work after conservation.
Striking etching, depicting Adolf Cichowski (1794-1854), officer, participant in the Napoleonic wars, collector and antiquarian, surrounded by Polish memorabilia in his possession.
Adolf Cichowski (born 1794, died October 7, 1854) - participant in the Napoleonic wars, officer.
After leaving military service, an official of the Treasury Commission. He was one of the first members of the Patriotic Society. Arrested in 1822, after his release he was removed from his post and remained under police surveillance. In the November Uprising he did not serve in the military, was appointed chairman of the Public Buildings Commission, and published the "Kurier Polski." After the occupation of Warsaw by the Russian army, he emigrated with his wife Ludwika (née Dupont) to Dresden. In 1834 he was sentenced by Russian authorities to be hanged for participation in the November Uprising. In 1834 his property left in Poland was confiscated, and he settled in exile in Paris a year later. He became an associate of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, taking up the position of director of the female school at the Hotel Lambert. He collected Polish antiquities and national memorabilia, mainly engravings. Among other things, he amassed a collection of some 400 maps and atlases of old Poland, most of which are now in the Czartoryski Library in Cracow. A friend of Chopin, a collection of 20 letters from Chopin to Adolf Cichowski is kept in the National Museum in Warsaw. He was a member of the freemasonry lodge Astrea in 1819
Literature:
Widacka, Catalogue of portraits.... t. 1 item 746
Graphic Arts Enthusiasts 2006 p. 188 item V.31
Jan Nepomucen Lewicki (1795-1871) - Polish painter, printmaker, lithographer, photographer.
Studied in 1822-1824 at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under Józef Brodowski, and then studied lithography at the Fine Arts Department of the University of Warsaw. He participated in the November Uprising, making topographical maps for the insurgent troops.
After the fall of the Uprising he emigrated 1843 to France, settled in Paris, 1853-1859 ran a school of photography and cartography in Lisbon. Upon his return to Warsaw 1860, he became artistic director of the "Illustrated Weekly" and co-owner of a photographic establishment.
Around 1865, he settled again in Paris, and engaged in applied graphics (city views, portraits of prominent historical and contemporary personalities, genre scenes, historical Polish clothing, as well as satirical drawings). He painted the painting "Slaughter of Galicia." He illustrated the memoirs of Jan Chryzostom Pasek and "Ubiory ludu polskiego" by Leon Zienkowicz (1841). [wikipedia.pl]
Below is a link to a Youtube video about the portrait of A. Cichowski (item 105 in the auction) and Feliks Wrotnowski's brochure about the collector (item 106 in the auction).