Juliusz Kossak (1824 Nowy Wiśnicz - 1899 Kraków), Huculka and foal, 1889.

watercolor, paper, 32 × 24 cm
Signed and dated l. d.: "Juliusz Kossak/1889"

Henryk Gąsiorowski (1878-1947), an outstanding expert on the Hutsul region, geographer, sightseer wrote "The Hutsuls are the most interesting ethnographic monument not only in the Polish lands, but also in Europe. They constitute an anthropological and cultural mixture unparalleled elsewhere. You can find Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian and Armenian types among them (because they had daily contact with these nations),
and even anthropological features of South Slavic, Albanian, Turkish, Tatar and Gypsy." ("Gazeta Krakowska," March 25, 2011). This mixing of population, language and customs has influenced the emergence of an exceptionally rich Hutsul folklore. It is dominated by Wallachian as well as Ukrainian and Polish elements related to pastoral culture. It is not at all surprising that this land fascinated painters, writers and musicians. The senior of the Kossak family, counted among the coryphaeuses of Polish culture, was also one of the forerunners of the Hutsul theme in painting. A while later, the subjects of this borderland region and the highlanders inhabiting it began to be taken up by Teodor Axentowicz, Stanisław Dębicki, Fryderyk Pautsch, Kazimierz Sichulski and Władysław Jarocki, among others. As Kazimierz Olszanski writes: (...) Juliusz Kossak between 1888 and 1889 painted more and more genre scenes, mostly from the two regions of
Poland, known to the artist best, from Podolia and Pokucie, and from Kraków. (...) A Krakow drużba (...), a Highlander and a Highlander woman (...), a Hutsul and a Hutsul woman on nimble mountain horses treading carefully on steep paths." (K. Olszanski "Juliusz Kossak", Krakow 2000, p. 234.)