Olga Boznańska (1865 Kraków - 1940 Paris), Portrait of Princess Jadwiga née Sanguszka Sapieżyna

oil, cardboard, 70.5 × 48 cm in light frame

Provenance:
- Private collection, Poland

The painting will be included in the catalog raisonné of Olga Boznańska's paintings
being prepared by Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha (National Museum in Cracow) and Ewa Bobrowska-Jakubowska.

"What did I paint in those years in Paris? The same things as today. First of all, portraits. A living person is always more interesting to me than all those combined books and decanters."
Olga Boznanska, quoted by Junius, At Olga Boznanska's in Paris, "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" 1938, no. 42, p. 806.

"A painter who is not a "born psychologist," that is, a man who intuitively senses psychic values, will never manage to go beyond the limit of creating in a portrait plastic, formally faithful likenesses and projecting in it at most his own temperament. Well, Olga Boznanska has precisely an extremely sensitive apparatus for discovering the melody of souls.... She does not "resonate", she does not wonder about the social position of the model, she does not ask who is standing in front of her - a poet, a banker or a politician - but she approaches, as if on tiptoe, the "inner chamber" of the portrayed person, in order to saturate the pictorial phenomenon of her work with the melody she hears there, with the most secret rhythm of the soul, which is no longer disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the everyday drama of existence - with her incessant, and always new, always revealing story about man."
Z. L. Z., At the plastics [exhibition at the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts],
"Kurier Warszawski" 1927, no. 214 (evening edition), p. 2.

Jadwiga Klementyna of the Sanguszkos Sapieżyna (1830 Kraków - 1918 there) - daughter of the Prince of the Coat of Arms of Pogoń Litewska, Wladyslaw Hieronim Sanguszko, and Princess Izabela Maria of Lubomirska Sanguszko of the Druzhina Coat of Arms. At the age of twenty-two, she married Prince Adam Stanislaw Sapieha (1828-1903), whose estate included Krasiczyn Castle, which has been in the hands of the Sapieha family since 1944. Adam and Jadwiga lived to see six offspring of their own, including a son, Adam Stefan Sapieha (1867 - 1951), later a diocesan bishop of Krakow. As a result of a long-standing affair between Jadwiga Sapieha's husband and her younger sister Helena, two children were born. The girl was given to France for upbringing, while the boy, Jan Piotr Sapieha (1865-1954), the duchess decided to recognize and raise as her own offspring. In the year of Jadwiga Sapieha's death, memoirs dedicated to the duchess appeared in print in Cracow, where Fr. Czeslaw Bogdalski wrote: "...strange qualities developed in her, but above all of them was a charming modesty. Even when she entered the world, the breeze of the world never clouded her sense of modesty. There was in her, as Prince Adam herself, her spouse, told me back in the eighties of the last century, - some sense of accuracy and sanity that permeated all her actions." (Cz. Bogdalski, "Jadwiga ze Sanguszków księżna Adamowa Sapieżyna. Posthumous Memoir," Krakow 1918, p. 5).

Upright figure in the type of representational portrait, tightly filling the frame, modest attire, enlivened only by gold earrings in the ears, gaze bold and confidently fixed ahead - this is how Olga Boznańska saw Princess Jadwiga of Sanguszko Sapieżyna during her first portrait sessions. This image is a good example of the realization, the painting convention, for which the artist was so highly regarded by art critics: "The painting, although it gives the impression of being blurred and is kept in neutral nuances, is striking for its extraordinary psychological power. This is a real feat: to give a psychological dimension to a painting with blurred forms, fond of neutral tones." (R. Chabrié-Tomaszewicz, L'Art polonaise à Paris. [...] II. Les artistes polonais [Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts], "La Pologne politique, économique, littéraire et artistique," 1920, sem. I, p. 393). "All the forms here seem to have dissolved, in a gloomy grayness; the plastic convexity of the masses is obliterated, and the face alone shows its expression with the greatest discretion, but also with force. These are refined portraits, conceived in great style, in colors that are economical yet exquisite, based on harmonizing the least expected contrasts." (A. Basler, Salon of Paris, "Art" (Paris) 1904, no. 2, p. 96). Boznanska portrayed the duchess again in 1910. This portrait is now in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow (oil, canvas, 118 x 96 cm, signed and dated p. g.: "Olga Boznańska 1910", inv. no.: MNK II-b-2296). Significantly, marked by the passage of time, the image of the then 80-year-old Jadwiga is diametrically different in expression from the portrait offered at auction. The strength and pride beaming from the earlier likeness has fled, and its place has been taken by meekness and good-naturedness. These were also the subjective feelings of the painter herself towards the posing model: "[...] the portrait is already very advanced, it looks very interesting. The Duchess like a poor little sick chick." (from the artist's correspondence to Ludwik Puget dated 14.10.1910, quoted in H. Blum, "Olga Boznańska", Warsaw, 1974, p. 72). Also in terms of form, the earlier portrait is painted more freely with bold brushstrokes, which gives more expression to the representation.