pencil, paper, 15.5 x 23.8 cm (in light of passe-partout)
On the back of the drawing - visible in the window of the frame - notes made by the artist in ink; also on the cardboard protecting the drawing from the back, stamp of the National Museum of the Przemysl Region in Przemyśl and of the bookbinding workshop in Cracow.
Provenance: the circle of the artist's Family.
The drawing - along with other works from the same family collection - was exhibited from May to August 2016 at the exhibition Outline of Thought. Drawing sketches and watercolors by Piotr Michałowski from a private collection at the National Museum of the Przemysl Region in Przemyśl.
Piotr Michał owski (Krakow 1800 - Krzysztoforzyce / Krzyżtoporzyce 1855) was the most outstanding painter of the era of Polish Romanticism, and his work is a phenomenon on a European scale. Versatilely talented, he studied natural sciences, law, history and languages at Jagiellonian University and Göttingen from 1815 to 1821. At the same time, from childhood he studied drawing in the Cracow studios of M. Stachowicz, J. Brodowski and F. Lampi. He worked in the administration of the Kingdom of Poland as head of the steel mills and mining counselor. During the November Uprising he managed the production of arms and ammunition at the Bialogon steelworks. From 1832 to 1835 he stayed in Paris and studied in the studio of Nicolas Toussaint Charlet. He was an excellent painter of horses, and his paintings and watercolors gained admiration and great success, so that "all of Paris flew after his horses." Upon his return to the country, he stayed mainly at his estates - Krzyżtoporzyce and Bolestraszyce, taking care of their administration. He traveled extensively in Europe, going to London, Vienna, Carlsbad, Belgium, Holland and several more times to France. In 1848-53 he served as Chairman of the Administrative Council of the City of Cracow. He painted dynamic battle compositions from the Napoleonic wars, equestrian portraits of commanders and hetmans, portraits of family and friends, and portraits of peasants. His oil paintings and watercolors, combining expressive power with sensitivity to nature, are characterized by bold drawing, synthetic form, values of color, freedom of painting technique and the romantic ardor of a Polish patriot.
