p.d. in pencil: 108.
Attached to the work is an opinion by Adam Konopacki, dated December 2004.
The drawing comes from Jacek Malczewski's sketchbook of 132 pages, bearing on the "title" pasteboard most likely the author's title XXXII. This page, like the last, bears the stamp: ZE ZBIORÓW MARJI MALCZEWSKIEJ with the family coat of arms. The sketchbook dates from the period of the artist's education at St. Jacek's Gymnasium in Cracow (1871-1873). As Adam Konopacki states: The high number of the sketchbook testifies to the incredible enthusiasm for drawing displayed by eighteen-year-old Jacek Malczewski at the time. Sketchbook XXXII contains [ ...] sketches of figures of peasants, peasant women, Jews, rural grandfathers and carriages, animals, rural buildings, interiors of churches. Most of the drawings were made in pencil, only 9 of them - in pen and ink.
Jacek Malczewski (Radom 1854 - Cracow 1929) - a prominent representative of Polish modernism painting, began his artistic studies at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, where in 1872-1875 he studied under Feliks Szynalewski, Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Jan Matejko, whose studio he attended again in 1877-1879. Then he studied at the Paris École des Beaux Arts under E. Lehmann (1876-1877).
In 1880, he traveled to Italy. In 1884-1885, he took part - as a draughtsman - in Karol Lanckoroński's scientific expedition to Pamphylia and Pisidia in Little Asia. At that time he was also in Greece and Italy. In 1885-1886 he stayed in Munich for several months. Upon his return, he settled permanently in Cracow, from where he made further trips to Munich and Italy. In 1896-1900 he taught at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, and from 1911-1922 he was a professor and twice rector of the Cracow Academy. He spent the years 1914-1915 in Vienna, and in 1916 returned to Cracow. In the last years of his life he stayed mainly in Luslawice and Charzewice near Zakliczyn. He was a co-founder of the Society of Polish Artists "Art" (1897) and a member of the "Zero" group (1908).
In his early period, he painted portraits, genre scenes and - above all - paintings with themes related to the martyrdom of Poles after the January Uprising(Death of Ellenai, Sunday in the Mine, On the Stage, Christmas Eve in Siberia). Later, from the 1890s, he created paintings of symbolic content with intermingled patriotic, biblical, fairy-tale, literary and allegorical-fantastic themes.
