Piotr STACHIEWICZ (1858-1938), Set of 6 heliogravures from the series "Women of Sienkiewicz", 1898

1. Kniazowa Kurcewiczowa ("With Fire and Sword"), 2. Helena Kurcewiczówna ("With Fire and Sword"), 3. Litka ("The Polanieckis Family"), 4. Anielka ("Without Dogma"), 5. Oleńka ("The Deluge"), 6. Hania ("Hania")
heliogravure (visible plate imprint), cardboard; 25 x 19 cm (clear passe-partout);
signed and engraved on the plate l. d.
Under the composition, the signature of the artistic lithography workshop "Meisenbach Riffarth & Co".
The prints come from a portfolio illustrating Sienkiewicz's works published in 1898.
Piotr Stachiewicz (born October 29, 1858 in Nowosiółki Gościnne in Podolia, died April 14, 1938 in Cracow) - Polish painter and illustrator. In 1877-1883 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under Jan Matejko, Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Florian Cynk. He continued his studies in 1882-1885 in Munich (Academy of Fine Arts - Techn. Malklasse from October 21, 1882). Since 1885 he lived in Cracow, created religious, historical, genre paintings and portraits.
Georg Meisenbach - German engraver, inventor of the autotype. In 1883 Meisenbach & Co. merged with Heinrich Riffarth & Co. and founded Meisenbach Riffarth & Company, a well-known European printmaking company.
Heliogravure (Gr. helio + gravure) - a type of graphic intaglio printing technique, similar to aquatint, involving the photographic transfer of an image onto a metal plate (usually copper) and etching with photosensitive emulsion so that the brightest areas create the shallowest recesses. Invented in 1879, printing is done in a special hand press. Heliogravure, widespread in the 19th century, was later supplanted by rotogravure, as heliogravure is an expensive and very time-consuming method. Heliogravure is used only when it is necessary to create a small number of copies of very high quality.