Juliusz KOSSAK, EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF WŁADYSŁAW RAWICZ, 1861

Watercolor on paper; 19 x 24.7 cm (inner dimensions)
Signed lower left: Juliusz Kossak / 1861
Provenance: a collection in the U.S.
Appraisals: by Leszek Ludwikowski (1970); by Irena Bobrowska, conservator at the National Museum in Kraków (1970); by Stanisław Turczyński, director of the State Art Collections in Kraków-Wawel (1950).
The National Museum in Warsaw holds a second version of this subject from 1868, painted after the subject’s death and four times larger. Additionally, Juliusz Kossak painted an oil portrait of Władysław and Józef Rawicz on horseback around 1862.
Władysław Rawicz (1832–1863)—a landowner, social activist, and participant in the January Uprising—was born on September 2, 1832, in Warsaw to Aleksander Jan Rawicz, a banker and landowner, and Marianna (née Gutman). He was privately tutored and later attended the Fourth Real Gymnasium in Warsaw, from which he graduated with honors in 1850. He studied agronomy at the Agricultural Academy in Hohenheim near Stuttgart, and upon his return to Poland, he took over the Grochów estate in the Węgrów County. He managed the estate exemplarily, introduced modern methods of farming and animal husbandry, established winter schools for rural children, and freed the peasants from serfdom, switching to a rent-based system. He took particular delight in breeding horses and hunting. He personally trained the horses he purchased or bred, taking an interest in equestrian sports. The Grochów stable was widely renowned, earning the admiration of local landowners, to whom it lent its breeding stallions. He was associated with the “Whites,” opponents of a premature uprising, but when it broke out, he became actively involved in it. He organized supplies and aid for the insurgent units, and in May 1863 he was appointed head of the Siedlce County, and subsequently civil governor of the Podlasie Province. Arrested on September 27, 1863, at the Proszew estate and subjected to brutal interrogation, he did not betray any of his associates. Sentenced by a court-martial to death by hanging, he was executed on November 21, 1863, in Siedlce—even though the tsar’s pardon had arrived after the sentence had been carried out. His courage and tragic fate made him a symbol of steadfastness and self-sacrifice. Rawicz’s memory is particularly cherished in the Podlasie region—a monument to him stands in Siedlce, and one of the elementary schools bears his name, just as the residents of his hometown of Grochów honor his memory.
Starting price: 25,000
Estimated value: 40,000–50,000
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