Elwiro Michał ANDRIOLLI (1836–1893), Meir and Golda with a Goat, 1888, from the series *Meir Ezofowicz*

woodcut on tin, 24 x 19 cm (inside dimensions of the passe-partout measuring 34 x 28 cm); signed and dated on the woodcut block, lower left: "Andriolli 1881" and by the woodcut artist, lower right: "A. Zajkowski"
Michał Elwiro Andriolli—born Elwiro Michał Andriolli (born November 14, 1836, in Vilnius; died August 23, 1893, in Nałęczów) — a Polish draftsman, illustrator, and painter, a representative of Romanticism.
Andriolli specialized in painting and graphic arts. He worked primarily with pencil, ink, and gouache. He collaborated with, among others, the following Polish illustrated periodicals: *Tygodnik Illustrowany*, *Kłosy*, *Tygodnik Powszechny*, *Biesiada Literacka*, and “Wieniec,” for which he created numerous illustrations depicting structures built in the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (located in what are now Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus)—many of which no longer exist today.
He was a sought-after book illustrator who collaborated with publishers in Warsaw, Paris, and London. Among the most famous works of Polish and foreign literature illustrated by Andriolli, the following are worth mentioning: *An Old Tale* by J.I. Kraszewski, *Lilla Weneda* by J. Słowacki, *Meir Ezofowicz* by E. Orzeszkowa, *Born Jan Dęboróg* by W. Syrokomla, *Memoirs of a Collector* by I. Chodźko, *Marya* by A. Malczewski, *The Last of the Mohicans* by J.F. Cooper, *The Legend of the Ages* by V. Hugo, and *Romeo and Juliet* by W. Shakespeare. The artist worked intensively on illustrations for the works of Adam Mickiewicz, creating, among others, the most famous and, to this day, most popular illustrations for *Pan Tadeusz*.
Andrzej Zajkowski (born 1851 in Warsaw, died November 28, 1914, there) — an outstanding Warsaw woodcut artist, one of the leading figures in Polish xylography, and an excellent interpreter of Michał Andriolli’s drawings.
Active from 1865 to 1889, he gained recognition in artistic circles at an early age. His works began appearing in *Kłosy* when he was not yet 15 years old; by the age of 20, he was engraving Andriolli’s drawings, with whom he collaborated the longest (one of Zajkowski’s last works, titled *Koncert nad koncertami*, was based on an Andriolli drawing). In 1881, he was commissioned to create woodcuts based on Andriolli’s drawings for Adam Mickiewicz’s *Pan Tadeusz* (published in Lviv in 1882). In addition to Andriolli, Zajkowski engraved works by other outstanding painters and draftsmen (including Józef Chełmoński, Józef Buchbinder, Wojciech Gerson, Julian Fałat, Apoloniusz Kędzierski, Juliusz Kossak, Franciszek Kostrzewski, Jan Matejko, Józef Pankiewicz, Henryk Pillati, Władysław Szerner, Leon Wyczółkowski, and many others). In 1876, he founded a short-lived woodcut workshop with Jan Styfi. He received numerous awards for his artistic achievements, including at the Ornamental Art Exhibitions in Warsaw in 1886–1888 and the Printing Art Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1895.