Antoni Piotrowski, BEFORE THE CARD, 1886

44,7 x 86,0cm - oil, doubled canvas signed l.d.: A. Piotrowski 1886 paris

The painting after conservation.

Antoni Piotrowski (Nieltulisko Duże near Kunów 1853 - Warsaw 1924) - painter, draughtsman, illustrator - from 1869 studied at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Rafał Hadziewicz, Aleksander Kamiński and Wojciech Gerson. In 1875-1877 he studied at the Munich Academy, including with Wilhelm Lindenschmit Ml. and in 1877-1879 he was a student of Jan Matejko at the School of Fine Arts in Krakow. After his studies, he went to Paris, where he stayed for a longer period of time. He participated in the Salon Cimaise (1880) and the Paris Salons (1880 and 1881). Since 1884 he lived in Cracow, where he taught at the A. Baraniecki Courses (his student was, among others, O. Boznańska). In 1885/1886 he stayed in Bulgaria as a correspondent-illustrator for English and French magazines, documenting the Bulgarian-Serbian war. He traveled to Bulgaria several more times; there he painted a series of paintings for the National Gallery in Sofia and made a career as a portraitist of the aristocracy. In 1890 he was in Crete, in 1897 and 1903 he traveled to the Middle East, from where he sent correspondence and drawings from the Greco-Turkish War. From 1900 he lived permanently in Warsaw, but still traveled to Munich and Kiev. He was primarily a painter of genre scenes, often of Mazovian village life. He also painted portraits, landscapes, historical scenes and episodes from the January Uprising, in which he referred to the work of Maksymilian Gierymski. In the period around 1900, he also created fantasy-symbolic paintings (Nymphs and Satires, Shepherd's Idyll, Truth and Hypocrisy). He participated in painting the panorama of Berezin (with W. Kossak, J. Fałat, K. Pulaski, J. Stanislawski and M. Wywiórski) and the panorama of the Tatra Mountains (with S. Janowski and others). In 1887 he collaborated on the painting decoration of St. Catherine's Church in St. Petersburg, in 1888 he painted plafonds in the Hertz palace in Lodz. He illustrated the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz. He participated in many exhibitions, both at home and abroad. He was a co-founder of the Society of Polish Artists "Art" and a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.