Title: Melancholy
Author: Otolia Kraszewska
Year: unknown
Technique: Oil on board
Work framed (slight cracks in the frame)
Dimensions: 48.5 x 32.5 cm, 57 x 41 cm (with frame)
Signature: handwritten p.d.: Otolia Kraszewska
Condition: very good
Otolia Kraszewska (1859-1945), Polish painter of the "Munich school". From the late 1870s, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg under Ivan Aivazovsky. In 1890, she went to Munich, where she studied with Franz Roubaud and Wladyslaw Czachórski.
Beginning in 1892, she exhibited paintings at international art exhibitions at Munich's Crystal Palace (Glaspalast), and also took part in exhibitions of the Munich Society of Fine Arts (Münchner
Kunstverein), of which she was a member. She also sent her works to Poland, primarily to the TZSP in Warsaw and the TPSP in Cracow.
Researchers of Kraszewska's work have recorded about 100 of her works, 20% of which are known from reproductions or descriptions. They were exhibited and sold in Munich, Cologne, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow and Lviv, and reproduced in numerous magazines. She also carried out private commissions of the aristocracy in Germany and at home. There is also an indication that she worked for the Romanian court.
The mainstream of the artist's work in painting, are genre scenes, flowers, where sentimental motifs prevail. In addition, the artist was involved in illustration and applied art - she painted fans and postcards.
Kraszewska learned from Aivazovsky realistic painting, which, through the use of sophisticated play of light and shadow, evokes the impression of materiality and depth of space. From Czachórski, in turn, she took over the motif of a woman shown in a naturalistic manner - exquisitely dressed, often sitting against a background of a detailed interior, proving that, like him, she was able to masterfully render fabrics, flowers and jewelry.
