Dimensions: 120.5 x 253 cm
Signed and dated p.d., inside composition: 'H. Lipinski. r. 1883' and signed, dated and inscribed secondarily l.d.: '(...) H. Lipinski (...) | - 1885 - Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz (?)'
described on the reverse with numerical notes (in a column), stamp of the Vienna warehouse of painting implements and sub-images W. Koller & Co, numbered on the painter's loom: '52.'
Origins
collection of Count Potworowski, Poznań
private collection, Poland
DESA Unicum, December 2022
private collection, Poland
Exhibited
Society of Friends of Fine Arts, Cracow, 1885
Literature
Ryszard Jeremi Kluszczyński, History of Polish Painting. Od gotyckiego malarstwa tablicowego do Stefana Gierowskiego, Kraków 2022, p. 169 (mentioned)
Ryszard Jeremi Kluszczyński, Wielka księga malarstwa polskiego, Kraków 2019, p. 136 (mentioned)
Polish Painting in Private Collections. Unknown works of outstanding artists of the XIX century, compiled by. Elżbieta Charazińska, Ewa Micke-Broniarek, Anna Tyczyńska, Warsaw 1995, cat. no. 54, p. 55 (il.).
Emmanuel Swieykowski, Memoirs of the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Cracow 1854-1904, Cracow 1905, pp. 89 (mentioned in the list of works) and 404 (mentioned in the text)
Report of the Directorate of the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Cracow on its activities for the year 1885, Cracow 1886, cat. no. 177, p. 10.
compare: Album "Cracow to Zagreb", published by the Artistic and Literary Circle in Cracow, Cracow 1881, card no. 11 (lithograph by Hipolit Lipinski, St. Catherine Church in Cracow)
Biography
Born into an impoverished bourgeois family in Nowy Targ. As a boy he moved to Krakow, where his sister lived. He initially studied at the School of Fine Arts there in the 1860s. He then traveled to Munich, where he studied in the private studio of Theodor Dietz and at the Munich Academy under Otto Seitz and Hermann Anschütz. During his studies on the Isar River, he received a bronze medal. He returned to Krakow in 1872. After two years, he re-entered the walls of the Krakow academy and this time came into direct contact with the figure of Jan Matejko. He taught at the Adrian Baraniecki Higher Courses for Women organized at the Technical and Industrial Museum. He also took an active part in preparations for the visit of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1880. Together with other artists, he painted scenes from the monarch's stay in Galicia for an album later given to Archduke Rudolf. He also created the painting "The Austrian Emperor on the Circumnavigation of Cracow 1880," which he presented to Franz Joseph.
He exhibited in all major salons and institutions in the Polish lands, as well as abroad, where he won recognition. He painted mainly large-scale, elaborate genre scenes depicting the life of Krakow at the time. His compositions, maintained in the spirit of realism, are characterized by meticulousness and attention to detail. With a reporter's flair, Lipinski recreated both the historical costume and the architecture against which he set the scenes he depicted. In his later works, even before Pankiewicz and Podkowiński, he smuggled in some issues of French impressionism in the form of luminous blips and characteristic reflections. The painter died in Krakow at the age of only thirty-eight, and despite the fame he achieved during his era, he fell unjustly into oblivion. His best-known paintings include "Corpus Christi Procession" (1881, MNK), "The Zwierzyniec Horse" (ca. 1881, MNK), "Market in the Market Square in Krakow" also known as "Ash Wednesday" (ca. 1875-80, MNK) or "Rumford Soup in front of St. Catherine's Church in Krakow" (1883, private collection).
