January Suchodolski, PORTRET HETMAN, ca. 1845

129,5 x 115,5cm - oil, canvas duplicated

Signed l.d.: J. Suchodolski.

From the artist's letters we can see how strong was his "passion" for art, how happy he was with the choice of his life path. This passion corresponded to his patriotism. Military and Polish themes, taken mostly from the romanticized era of the Napoleonic wars, the Legions and the Uprising, as well as from Poland's glorious past, corresponded to the soldierly fantasy and sentiment of the Polish officer, and at the same time confirmed his belief that in this way he was perpetuating the national spirit in society, while spreading his love of art.

K. Sroczyńska, January Suchodolski, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1961, p. 23.

January Suchodolski, a participant in the 1831 uprising and adjutant to General Wincenty Krasinski, decided to devote himself to painting after his military career ended. Nicknamed the "Polish Vernet," he developed a distinctive, easily recognizable style that was a fusion of romantic-realist narrative and idealizing aesthetics. He drew inspiration from key moments in Polish history, but also from family legends and images of the founders of noble families. In his historical paintings and those combining history with everyday life, the artist most often depicted Napoleonic times and the period of Polish wars of the 17th century. The portrait of the Hetman was painted during the best period of the author's work, falling in the 1840s-50s, about which Krystyna Sroczynska writes: the 1840s and 1850s are the peak of Suchodolsky's career and his popularity. He becomes a member of the St. Petersburg Academy, poets write poems about his paintings, graphic artists make engravings of them, admirers dedicate stanzas to him. Rich landowners order paintings from him, for which he sometimes chooses the subject himself, or buy them "sight unseen", based on a mere description. Suchodolski's name is made famous in exhaustive articles by Kraszewski and Michal Grabowski, and is echoed by Jozef Kenig, a vetter of the studios of leading Warsaw painters. This is the period when Piotr Michalowski, unknown to the general public, is reaching his last years, when Rodakowski, Simmler, Kossak and Gerson are just breaking out, and Grottger and Matejko are not yet heard of (K. Sroczynska, p. 14).

Krystyna Sroczynska, a monographer of Suchodolski's work, lists several equestrian portraits by his brush, depicting hetmans Tarnowski, Czarniecki, Zolkiewski and Chodkiewicz. A noticeable compositional similarity - involving a mirror image of the portrayed figure - links two other paintings: a Hussar Colonel (private collection) and a lost 17th century Polish Hussar (formerly in the Mielżyński Gallery in Poznań), both dated by Sroczynska to 1845 (items 88 and 123, pp. 248-249). A large-format portrait of Tarnowski, known today only from sources, is also dated to the same year. Therefore, it can be assumed that the offered painting was created during the same period and represents a

January Suchodoklski (Grodno 1797 - Boim near Wegrow 1875) called "Polish Vernet" painter-battleman January Suchodolski in his earlier period was a self-taught painter who, while serving in the army, took up amateur painting. He participated in the November Uprising, and after its fall went to Rome in 1832, where he studied in the studio and under the direction of Horace Vernet. He returned to Warsaw in 1837, and in 1839 traveled to St. Petersburg, appointed a member of the Academy of Fine Arts there. In 1847 he traveled to Paris. He was one of the founders of the Warsaw Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts (1859). He painted battle paintings, most often of the Napoleonic wars, horse portraits and genre scenes with a motif of soldiers and slender, beautiful Arabian horses. The patriotic content, vivid colors and precise drawing of Suchodolski's paintings brought him real fame and success.