Portrait of General Jozef Dwernicki

Jan Tabinski

Basic information

ID: Ж-4837
Author: Jan Tabinski
Name: Portrait of General Jozef Dwernicki
Date of creation: 1859
Country: Austrian Empire
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 47.5 x 39.5

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv

Information about author

Author: Jan Tabinski
Artist's lifetime: 1836–1915
Country: Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: Jan Tabinski (10 May 1836, Markowa – 18 September 1915, Rzeszow) was a Polish artist. He was the author of paintings on historical and religious themes and portraits. He was an alumnus of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and participated in the January Uprising of 1863. Jan Tabinski was exiled to Siberia. After his return in 1877, he settled in Rzeszow and devoted himself to monumental sacred art (polychrome work in the churches of Rzeszow, Strzyzow, Krosno, and others).

Object description

The portrait (1859) by Jan Tabinski is a reduced copy of a painting (1856) by Aleksander Raczynski (1822–1889), which in turn was based on the "The Portrait of General Jozef Dwernicki ", created by the French artist Jean Gigoux (1806–1894) in 1833 (Louvre). All three works are almost identical in composition and colour scheme, with only minor differences in details of clothing and surroundings. The work is a formal, knee-length portrait of an elderly grey-haired man with a moustache, wearing a double-breasted general's uniform with epaulettes and the Legion of Honour medal on his chest. The man rests his left hand on a sword, while his right hand is placed on a map lying on a small table (in the portraits by Gigoux and Raczynski, instead of the table with a map, there is a cannon). Wide sideburns frame his round face. His confident and determined gaze is directed at the viewer. The man is depicted against a battlefield backdrop, with a horse and rider visible to the left behind him. The background colour – a dark brown with deep red – symbolises fire, blood, and war.

Inscriptions

In the bottom right corner, the signature: "…biński". On the reverse side: "zur Stadt Rom".

Portrayed person

The name of the person portrayed: Jozef Dwernicki (1779, Warsaw – 1857, Lopatyn) was a Polish general and cavalry commander during the Polish November Uprising of 1831. He came from a noble family of the Sas coat of arms, which owned estates in Podillia. In the village of Zavallia stands the former Dwernicki Palace (now partly in ruins). He took part in Napoleon's campaigns. He was awarded the Legion of Honour (1813). Author of memoirs. In Lviv, from 1885 to 1946, there was a street named Dwernicki (now divided into three streets: Ilarion Svientsitskyi, Yurii Mushak, and Mykola Lemyk).
Lifetime of the person portrayed: 1779–1857

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Portrait of General Jozef Dwernicki

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