Jan CHEŁMIŃSKI (1851-1925), Dwór pański w podróży za czasów Augusta III, 1880

oil, canvas; 75.5 x 120 cm;
Signed, dated and described p. d.: Jan Chelminski 1880 München.

Jan Chelminski began his study of painting under Juliusz Kossak, continued at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Wojciech Gerson, and eventually, like many Polish painters, studied at the Munich academy and the private studios of Jozef Brandt and the batalist Franz Adam. After graduating, he remained in Munich and then traveled to London, Paris, St. Petersburg and eventually settled in New York. The artist was an expert and collector of uniforms and armaments. Just as Jozef Brandt's Munich studio abounded in items related to the study of hippology, Jan Chelminski's studio was full of panoplies. The artists were bound by their love of historical scenes. Chelminski was particularly interested in those related to the Napoleonic period. Another theme taken up by the painter was scenes in historical costumes, which links his paintings to the work of Maximilian Gierymski, for example. Like his teacher Juliusz Kossak, Jan Chelminski also painted rides, walks and horse portraits, as well as scenes of hunting. This brief characterization of the Munich milieu of prominent Polish painters makes it possible to consider the offered canvas "The Lord's Court on a Journey in the Time of August III" as exceptional. Jan Chelminski painted the composition shortly after his studies. Already in the year of its creation 1880 it was presented at the Berlin Academy [as: The Lord's Court on a Journey in the Time of August III of Saxony (Herrschaften auf Reisen zur Zeit August III. von Sachsen]* and in 1881 reproduced in the form of a woodcut in the magazine "Kłosy" [1881, no. 857, (December 1), p. 348]. Since then, the work was in the Bavarian collection. In 2008, the canvas was put up for auction, where the description included a message from the heirs regarding the painting's subject matter - namely, that the painting depicts the passage through Poland to St. Petersburg of the young Sophie - Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst and later Tsarina Catherine II, where she was to marry the future Tsar Peter III* in 1745. Jan Chelminski spent most of his life outside Poland, and his compositions are scattered from Germany to England (where the artist obtained British citizenship and changed the spelling of his name) to the United States, so his canvases are extremely rare on the domestic auction market.
(* source: https://sztuka.agraart.pl/licytacja/188/11515)