Format: cardboard 25 x 19 cm, in light passe-partout,heliogravure (plate imprint visible), signed and titled on the plate l.d .
Under the composition the signature of the artistic lithography workshop " Meisenbach Riffarth & Co".
The graphic comes from a portfolio illustrating the works of Sienkiewicz published in 1898 . and is reproduced on Wikipedia.pl
Helena Skrzetuska née Kurcewicz - a fictional character, the main female character in the novel Ogniem i mieczem by Henryk Sienkiewicz, the beloved of Jan Skrzetuski, for whom he must compete with the Cossack commander Bohun.
Georg Meisenbach was a German engraver and inventor of the autotype. In 1883 Meisenbach & Co. merged with Heinrich Riffarth & Co. to form Meisenbach Riffarth & Company, a well-known European printmaking firm.
Heliogravure (gr.helio + gravure) - a type of graphic intaglio printing technique, similar to aquatint, involving the photographic transfer of an image onto a metal plate (usually copper) and etching with photosensitive emulsion so that the brightest areas create the shallowest recesses. Invented in 1879.Printing is done in a special hand press. Heliogravure, which was widespread in the 19th century, was later supplanted by rotogravure, as heliogravure is an expensive and very time-consuming method. Heliogravure is used only when it is necessary to create a small number of copies of very high quality.
Piotr Stachiewicz (born October 29, 1858 in Nowosiółki Gościnne in Podolia, died April 14, 1938 in Cracow) - Polish painter and illustrator.In 1877-1883 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under Jan Matejko, Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Florian Cynk. He continued his studies from 1882-1885 in Munich (Academy of Fine Arts - Techn. Malklasse from October 21, 1882).
Since 1885 he lived in Cracow, created religious, historical, genre paintings and portraits.