Henryk Siemiradzki, PATRICIA'S REST

19.3 x 30.3cm - oil, cardboard pasted on canvas (originally on board)

Signed l.d.: H. Siemiradzki
Pin marks in the corners.

On the reverse, on the l. strip of the loom, passing to the frame, a sticker of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in the Kingdom of Poland (print, ink): [No...]610 | [Author's name] | Henryk | [Siem]iradzki | [Type of work]a oil painting | [Title (...)]ek. | W[dimensions] | Ce[n]a or its value | Property of Mr. Edward | Ad[res] [A]leksandrów | Pograniczny | Warsaw d. 12/25 IX 903; on the upper loom strip, passing to the frame, a sticker of the Roman framing company Giosi; also numerous auction stickers.

The Giosi brothers' artists' goods company was located in Rome at via Margutta 48a and via Sistina 135 (both streets were where Siemiradzki lived in the 1870s).

A preserved sticker from the artist's posthumous exhibition at the Zachęta Gallery allows us to unambiguously identify the painting as Rest of a Patrician Woman listed in the catalog of that exhibition under No. 115. It belonged at the time to Edward Reicher (Rajcher, Rejcher; 1852-1927), a merchant, philanthropist and collector, a life member of the TZSP, residing in Aleksandrów Pograniczny (today: Kujawski), and from 1918 in Warsaw. Among other things, he was a director of the board of directors of the company of chemical factories "Radocha" and a member of the company "H. Reicher and S-ka" in Sosnowiec. In addition to Edward - his brothers Stanislaw and Maksymilian, as well as his sons Tadeusz Reicher-Sosnowski (1889-1939) and Mieczyslaw (d. ca. 1944) were also involved in collecting artworks. After Edward's death - the collection was dispersed - it is known that it was inherited by his family.
In Tadeusz Reicher-Sosnowski's brief description of the collection, Siemiradzki's painting does not appear (Nauka Polska, supplements to Materials for the Inventories of Scientific Institutions and Societies in Poland, vol. 12, 1930, p. 129, item 112). From the newspaper mention, however, it is known that the family sold some works before the war ("Good Morning," In the Clutches of the Demon Game.... Conviction of an antiquarian Jasielski, March 26, 1936, No. 86/1936).
In the catalog of the collection of E. Reicher (Vienna 1918), the sketch is entitled Roman Rest (oil on wood, 19 x 31 cm, marked l.d.: H. Siemiradzki). In the Corpus of Painterly Works of Henryk Siemiradzki, this work is listed under item 12/8-1.

Large composition completed with added figures of children, current storage location unknown, appears in the Corpus of Works.... and in Siemiradzki's monograph, by St. Lewandowski, as a separate iconographic subject under the titles Nad brzegiem jeziora, Nad brzegiem Zatooki morskiej, Szczęście rodzinne. This work is known today only from photographs and an oil copy (in the collection of the MNW; Polish Painting - MP 4999). The Warsaw museum's collection also includes a pencil sketch for the composition (Fig.Pol. 8953/24), which differs from both the presented oil sketch and the completed painting.

It is possible that Siemiradzki painted Odpoczynek patrycjuszka, as a pendant to Wypoczynek patrycjusza, which we auctioned in December 2024 (see opposite).

The sketch we present shows a scene of preparing a resting place for a patrician woman. She has disembarked from a lectern carried by slaves, and in the shade of a spreading tree, the women accompanying her are unfolding a woman's corsage. In the distance one can see the vast sea bay and the town lying above it. In this small, idyllic antique scene, Siemiradzki, in his characteristic manner, has hidden the figures in the shade of nearby trees, protecting them from the scorching midday sun. Soft, diffused light gently envelops the characters, building the atmosphere of a warm day and emphasizing the peaceful, idyllic mood of the composition.


The painting exhibited, mentioned and reproduced, among others, in:: - Catalog of the exhibition of paintings by Henryk Siemiradzki in the Building of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in the Kingdom of Poland, Warsaw 1903, p. 19, cat. no. 115 (Sketch for the painting "Rest of a patrician woman");
- Catalog of the Collection of Edward Rejcher, Vienna 1918, p. 16 (Roman Rest);
- Corpus of Henryk Siemiradzki's Paintings Works, edited by J. Malinowski, Warsaw-Toruń 2021, vol. 2a, p. 63, item 12/8-1.

Henryk Siemiradzki (Pecheny (Belgorod), near Kharkiv 1843 - Strzalkowo near Czestochowa 1902) - prominent academic painter; initially a pupil of painter Dmitry Bezperch in Kharkiv, a graduate of the natural science department of Kharkiv University - from 1864 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He received five silver and two gold medals for his student works.

In 1871, as a scholarship recipient of the Academy, he went to Munich, where he stayed for a year, studying independently and maintaining contacts with the colony of Polish artists there.
From 1872 he lived permanently in Rome; initially he had a studio in via Margutta, and from 1884 in his own palazzo in via Gaetta. Honored with membership in the European Academies - St. Luke's Academy in Rome (1880), the Academy in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris, Turin, repeatedly awarded medals at exhibitions, decorated with state orders (including the French Legion of Honor and the Italian order Corona d'Italia), he enjoyed great recognition and fame.
He maintained constant and lively contacts with the country - he sent paintings to exhibitions, and in 1879 donated his famous painting Candlesticks of Christianity to the city of Krakow, giving rise to the collection of the National Museum.
He painted curtains for theaters in Krakow (1896) and Lviv (1900; the artist's gift to the city).

He sought subjects for his paintings primarily in antiquity; in the history, life and myths of ancient Greece or Rome. But he also created religious scenes (Ascension), genre paintings and portraits. With masterful technique, he painted both monumental, theatrically staged and crowded canvases, and intimate compositions, set either in ancient scenery or in contemporary realities (With the Viaticum, With Consolation and Help).
He painted decorative plafonds (Spring, Dawn, Light and Darkness), and was the author of a set of paintings in the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow 1875-1879).
He was fond of painting the landscape, treated either as a backdrop for the scenes set in it, and sometimes as an independent landscape plunged into the falling dusk or bathed in sunlight.
With particular mastery he recreated the effects caused by light penetrating through the branches of trees, which, as H. Sienkiewicz wrote, cast a strong shadow, among which vibrate golden spots, formed by the sun's rays pressing between the leaves /.../ No one paints this movement of the sun's rays as well as Siemiradzki.