Portrait of Walerian Kryciński – Maurycy Gottlieb

This work by Maurycy Gottlieb is a portrait of his good friend and fellow student – Walerian Kryciński. It was painted in 1875 during their stay in Vienna, when they shared an apartment together with other friends. They were both students of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, directed by Jan Matejko.

The back of the painting bears Kryciński’s statement confirming the circumstances of the portrait’s origins. Owned by a private collector, this work remains relatively little-known.

Maurycy Gottlieb was born in 1856 in Drohobych, in a wealthy Orthodox Jewish family. He began to study painting in Lviv and from 1871, he continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Becoming acquainted with Jan Matejko’s history painting served as a turning point in the artistic path of the young painter. At the beginning of 1874, having written to Matejko to ask for enrolment in the School of Fine Arts, he arrived in Krakow.