Maciuś with a book

The drawing of a seated Maciuś (in a footless shot, as in the whole project - wearing a red jacket with a lined white collar and red trousers to the middle of the legs). To the left of the boy's figure are blue flowers with long stems. They are protruding from a brown crown, which Chmielewska made the leitmotif of the whole project (just like the floral motifs). | On his belt, facing us, Maciuś is holding a book with the inscription King Maciuś Pierwszy written on the cover (created by Iwona Chmielewska in watercolour). Under the inscription on the cover, on the right, there is an image of the author of the novel, Janusz Korczak, next to a child with a crown on his head. | Under the inscription, on the right, there is an image of the author of the novel, Janusz Korczak, next to the child with a crown on his head. - a photograph which appears in the novels, as in the first edition of 1923, next to the text of the introduction (see https://polona.pl/item/krol-macius-pierwszy-powiesc,MzM5MTc4Mw/4/#info:metadata, accessed 30.07.2021; in the picture book How hard it is to be a king this photograph closes the book). This introduction reads (quoted from the 1st edition, Warsaw 1923, p. 1): So when I was like in this photograph, I myself wanted to do all that is written here. But then I forgot, and now I'm old. And now I have neither the time nor the strength to wage war and travel to the cannibals. And I have given this photograph, because it is important when I really wanted to be a king, not when I write about King Maciuś. And I think it's better to give photographs of kings, travellers and writers when they weren't yet grown up and old, because then - it seems that they were wise from the start and were never small. And children think that they can't be ministers and writers, and that's not true'. | Tamara Sztyma and Anna Czerwińska in their afterword to 'How hard it is to be a king' drew attention to the clear similarity between the appearance of the little Goldsmith - Korczak and the character of Maciuś from Chmielewska's vision and joked that 'By changing the dark colours of the boy's clothes [from the photograph] into royal scarlet, Iwona Chmielewska fulfilled Korczak's own dream and made him a king'. | In the project of the exhibition's scenography, the work was used, as in the novel, in the introductory part - before the 'action' began, see: https://www.polin.pl/sites/default/files/pictures/w-polsce-krola-maciusia_zdjecia-z-wystawy_1_0.jpg