Rider on horseback (Portrait of Maximilian Oborski on horseback wearing top hat)

Piotr Michałowski, one of the most famous Polish painters of the Romanticism era, found a unique way of national painting that gained a universal dimension. He became famous as a painter of horses, which he had been painting since his childhood when he was soaked in the often-told Napoleonic legends. He perfected his skills while studying law in Göttingen, where he became acquainted with the ideas of romantic historicism. He was a wealthy man who painted for pleasure, hardly sold his paintings, and sought publicity. The great exhibition of Polish art held in Lviv in 1894, which presented over 60 of his works, revealed to art lovers and historians the great value of the artist's paintings. In the National Museum in Szczecin there is Jeździec na koniu / Portret konny Maksymiliana Oborskiego w cylindrze {The Rider on a Horse / The Portrait of Maksymilian Oborski in a Top Hat]. The portrayed man was the administrator of Piotr Michałowski's Bolestraszyce estate in 1846-1847. It was probably at this time that the watercolour we are interested in here was painted. Oborski, born in 1809 in Proszew (near Siedlce) and died on 28 January 1878 in Husów (near Łańcut), was a landowner who took part in the November and January Uprisings, which led to his exile in Siberia. He was also a draughtsman and watercolourist and, above all, a painter of horses in the context of the above work. In this situation, a painter of horses immortalised another painter of horses using watercolour and pencil.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska