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Portrait of Leon Potocki

unknown

Basic information

ID: Ж-2383
Author: unknown
Name: Portrait of Leon Potocki
Date of creation: early 19th c.
Country: Austrian Empire (?)
Culture: Modern times
Technique: oil painting
Material: wood oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 15.4 x 11.5

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: the Dzieduszycki collection

Information about author

Author: unknown
Country

Object description

Leon Potocki (July 14, 1799 – December 6, 1864) was a Polish writer and author of novels and memoirs. He was born into the family of Stanisław Florian Potocki, a general in the army of the Kingdom of Poland, and Countess Józefa Maria, née Sołohub. In 1817–1820, he studied at the University of Warsaw. In 1820, he married Barbara Kossakowska. In 1828, he became a chamberlain at the court of the Kingdom of Poland. He took part in the November Uprising and, after its defeat in October 1831, emigrated to Dresden. In 1834, after an amnesty was declared, he returned to Poland. He later divorced his wife and spent two years in Lithuania. In 1836, he finally returned to Warsaw, where he participated in public life and was involved in editorial, scientific, and writing activities. He was a co-founder of the monthly literary and scientific journal “Warsaw Library”, which was published from 1841 to 1914. In 1843, he married for the second time, to Anna, née Młokosiewicz. In 1854, L. Potocki's works “Blessed, or the Potocki Palace in Warsaw” and “An Outline of Social Life in Warsaw in the Second Half of the 19th Century” were published in Poznań. The author's most famous work is the three-volume “ Memoirs of Mr Kamerton”, published posthumously in 1869, which describes historical places and monuments, customs, and traditional Lithuanian clothing. A valuable part of the “Memoirs...” is the descriptions of magnate residences and the history of magnate families. He died on December 12, 1864, in Riga, where he is buried in the cemetery of St. Francis Church.

Portrayed person