Oil on panel, signed lower right “Szyndler,” inscribed on the reverse.
Dimensions with frame: 38x30 cm (29x21 cm)
Pantaleon Józef Szyndler (Szendler) (Lipie 1846 – 1905 Warsaw) – Polish painter, a representative of academic painting. He created nudes, as well as works with religious, genre, and Oriental themes. He also drew inspiration from motifs in Shakespeare’s plays and Polish Romantic poetry. He studied at the Drawing Class in Warsaw under the guidance of Rafał Hadziewicz. Thanks to a scholarship from the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, he continued his studies abroad. From 1871 to 1873, he studied at the Academy in Munich under Alexander Strähuber (in mid-May 1871, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts’ Antikenklasse), later at the Academy of St. Luke in Rome under Luigi Cohetti, and from 1874 to 1875 in Paris (École des Beaux-Arts), where he was a student of Alexandre Cabanel. After returning to Poland, he settled in Warsaw (1885–1894). He then lived in Częstochowa, where he worked at Jasna Góra and ran his own painting school. His painting *Ewa* received an “honorable mention” at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. In Warsaw, he sparked controversy: on the one hand, the artist was praised for his “deep sense of true idealism” (Kłosy, 1890), while on the other hand, critics noted the contemporary, boudoir-style depiction of Eve, whose legs and feet are too small even for such a delicate creature, who bears no resemblance whatsoever to our foremother (Biesiada Literacka). In a later assessment by the magazine *Kraj* (1905), “the painting, due to its excessive boldness, caused a storm in a teacup in its time.” He traveled to Crimea and Podolia in 1885. In 1902, he returned to Warsaw. He is buried in Powązki Cemetery.
