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Portrait of Karol Widman

Franciszek Tepa

Basic information

ID: Г-I-87
Author: Franciszek Tepa
Name: Portrait of Karol Widman
Date of creation: 1843
Technique: watercolour
Material: paper watercolour gouache
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 18.1 x 15.5

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery

Information about author

Author: Franciszek Tepa
Artist's lifetime: 1828–1889
Country: Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: The artist and graphic designer Franciszek Tepa was born in 1828 in Lviv. He received his initial artistic education from Jan Maszkowski. He continued his studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Ferdinand Waldmuller and later at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under Wilhelm von Kaulbach. In the circle of Lviv romanticists during the 1840s and 1850s, influenced by French painting, the theme of the East became popular. After completing his education at the academies in Vienna and Munich, Franciszek Tepa travelled for two years through Greece, Egypt, and Palestine. His fascination with Eastern themes was expressed in paintings and watercolours. In the 1850s, the artist studied in Paris. In 1858, after returning from Paris, he settled in Lviv. He then created a series of works on everyday themes for Count Wlodzimierz Dzieduszycki. He passed away in 1889 in Lviv.

Object description

The work is a half-length depiction of a man with his arms crossed, seated in a chair. He has dark hair, sparse moustache, and sideburns. The subject is dressed in light trousers and a black frock coat, from which a light waistcoat, white shirt, and a grey bow tie are visible. A white cuff is visible beneath the sleeve. The portrayed man, Karol Widman, was a lawyer, writer, archivist, journalist, and a well-known socio-political figure who raised issues regarding the autonomy of Galicia, the abolition of serfdom and defended the rights of Poles in the Austrian Empire. He held the position of secretary of the 7th Department of the Lviv Magistrate, managed the Municipal Statistical Office, and served as the curator of the Lviv City Archive (1882–1891). He researched the history of Lviv and was the author of the work "Archiwum miasta Lwowa". He compiled an inventory of diplomas and gathered copies of documents related to the military history of Lviv (including descriptions of arsenals, reports on battles, etc.). This collection included 250 items under the title "Acta militaria". He researched the biography of Franciszek Smolka, from whom he received a portion of the documents. He published papers on the history of Galician schools (1891), articles about the Church of St. Mary of the Snow and the Latin Cathedral, and the siege of Lviv in 1648. He compiled a card catalogue of accounting books ("longers"). Karol Widman was the founder and first secretary of the Provincial Archaeological Society (1875) and the editor of its publication "Przegląd Archeologiczny". In 1885, with W. Dzieduszycki and I. Szaraniewicz, he organised a Polish-Ukrainian archaeological exhibition that gathered Ukrainian-Polish archaeological artefacts from all over Galicia.
[Krukovskyi, O. (2007). Karol Widman. Ukrainian archivists (19th–20th centuries). In I. Matiash, S. Zvorskyi & L. Prykhodko (Eds.). Biobibliographical reference book [Biobibliohrafichnyi dovidnyk] (P.112). Kyiv.]

Inscriptions

In the bottom right, there is the artist's signature: "Fr. Tepa", followed by an unclear inscription. In the bottom left, there is an inscription: "Anno 1843".

Portrayed person