Dimensions: 44 x 65 cm
Signed p.d.: 'W. Kotarbinsky'
inscribed difficult to read on the reverse, on the painter's loom two stamps of the composition of painting materials
Literature
compare:
postcard with reproduction of the painting, published by Rzepkowicz Brothers, Warsaw, 1900-1912
"Biesiada Literacka" 1902, no. 41, p. 284 (ill. in mirror image)
"Tygodnik Ilustrowany" 1902, no. 17, p. 327 (il.)
Biography
Wilhelm Kotarbiński, cousin of Milosz, painter and illustrator. He studied at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Raphael Hadziewicz in 1867-71, and from 1872 also at the Academy of St. Luke in Rome. After graduating, he opened his own studio in Rome, where he also gave drawing lessons; his students included Maria Bashkirtsev. He returned from Italy in 1888 and from then on stayed mainly at his own estate Kalsk (or Kulsk) in Belarus. From there he made numerous trips to Kyiv, where he had a studio at the Prague Hotel. He participated in exhibitions of the Kyiv Art Society, and in 1893 co-founded the Society of Kyiv Painters. Together with Pavel Sverdomsky, Mikhail Nesterov and Mikhail Vrubel, he worked on the fresco decoration of Kyiv's St. Vladimir's Cathedral (completed in 1894-95). He was the author of decorative plafonds and wall paintings in, among other places, the home of Mykola Tereshchenko and the palace of Bohdan Khanenko in Kyiv, as well as in the salons of palaces in St. Petersburg and Moscow. He painted primarily compositions with biblical themes, as well as genre scenes inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity. He also created fantasy scenes of a symbolic nature.
