
"After the Ball"
Castle Museum in Łańcut
Part of the collection: Malarstwo i rysunek
The young woman in the portrait is the painter's wife, Hertha, who was his favourite model. The seated figure is depicted in a relaxed pose. Her head is slightly turned toward her right shoulder, with parted red lips on which a smile plays. A smile is visible only on her lips as her eyes look serious. She rests her left hand on an armrest covered with a cushion, while in her right hand, she holds a crimson rosebud, lowered downward. Between her hands lies an open illustrated book. Hertha wears a shoulder-revealing summer silk dress in a light pink colour with a delicate floral pattern. She wears a single strand of pearls visible under a loosely draped red silk gauze shawl, which falls over her back and also wraps around her left forearm. The modelling of the body is very meticulous, while the face, dress, and background are treated more casually. The background is abstract, fluid, without clear contours, maintained in muted blues and greys. The overall tone of the painting is pastel. The model's rose gold complexion is accentuated by the rusty red of the shawl and lips, as well as the colour of the flower petals.
The portrait was painted in Houston in 1958, and like all of Czedekowski's works, it has a frame carefully selected by the artist. This was characteristic of the painter, who would often create his works already within the chosen frame. He did not make sketches directly on the canvas with pencil or charcoal, but instead prepared them beforehand in small format, using oil paint on cardboard. On the canvas, he would build the form and content directly with colour.
Bolesław Jan Czedekowski (1885–1969) was a Polish painter born in Voinyliv, in Eastern Galicia. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and later became a student of Professor Kazimierz Pochwalski and Heinrich von Angeli, two renowned portrait painters. He opened his first studio in Vienna and was perhaps most associated with this city during his early artistic career. He also lived in Vienna during World War I, gradually gaining recognition for his portraits of aristocratic women and the wives of high-ranking officers. He exhibited his art in Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, and Kraków, though it was not initially well-received in Poland. After World War II, he immigrated to the United States. In the 1960s, he returned to Vienna, where he passed away on 8 July 1969. He was buried in Lofer, near Salzburg. Czedekowski was married twice. His first marriage, to Viennese Eugenia Nell in 1913, resulted in a daughter named Helena. As a widower, he met Hertha Aujezdecky, who became his second wife and, after the artist's death, the donor of numerous canvases collected in the Łańcut museum.Dorota Błoniarz
Author / creator
Object type
painting
Technique
olej
Material
canvas, oil-color
Creation / finding place
Owner
Muzeum - Zamek w Łańcucie
Identification number
Location / status
Bolesław Jan Czedekowski
Castle Museum in Łańcut
Castle Museum in Łańcut
20th century
Castle Museum in Łańcut
DISCOVER this TOPIC
Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów
DISCOVER this PATH
Educational path
0/500
We use cookies to make it easier for you to use our website and for statistical purposes. You can manage cookies by changing the settings of your web browser. More information in the Privacy Policy.
We use cookies to make it easier for you to use our website and for statistical purposes. You can manage cookies by changing the settings of your web browser. More information in the Privacy Policy.
Manage cookies:
This type of cookies is necessary for the website to function. You can change your browser settings to block them, but then the website will not work properly.
WYMAGANE
They are used to measure user engagement and generate statistics about the website to better understand how it is used. If you block this type of cookies, we will not be able to collect information about the use of the website and we will not be able to monitor its performance.