Peasant cartload

Watercolour by Stanisław Masłowski from 1889, framed in a cardboard passe-partout; it was purchased for the collection of the Castle Museum in Łańcut in the 1970s. It depicts a two-wheeled country cart in a one-horse drawbar harness, shown in an open field, with an inn visible in the far background. The cart’s body has a picturesque line, a low front mudguard and a curved step at the drawbar for the coachman to get on. It appears that the body does not rest directly on the axles – the vehicle may therefore be equipped with springs. Although the driver is dressed in a peasant's cloak a classic Ukrainian high lambskin cap with a red bottom, it does not seem that he is driving his own vehicle – the carriage may belong to the owner of a farm or a mansion. In the further background the painter has shown a three-horse carriage and in the background on the left a two-horse carriage driven from the coachman seat. Masłowski’s watercolour, which has an absolutely documentary character, shows the colour and specificity of carriages occurring in the Polish eastern borderlands up to the First World War. Aldona Cholewianka-Kruszyńska