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Portrait of a woman
Castle Museum in Łańcut
Part of the collection: Malarstwo i rysunek
The painting depicts the artist’s wife in a dark ball gown with bare shoulders and cleavage. Her neck is adorned with a single strand of pearls, tied with a red silk gauze scarf. Hertha is seated facing forward in an upholstered chair, her head slightly turned to the left. She holds a gold masquerade mask in her hand, as if she is about to remove it from her smiling face. The other hand, resting on the armrest and still wearing a white evening glove, gently holds a rose and the second glove, which has been removed from the raised right hand. Draped over her knees is a fur stole in dark brown. Her short, curly hair with golden highlights is naturally styled. The model’s fair complexion, with a rosy hue, contrasts against the muted grey and blue background of the portrait, and the barely visible fabric draped on the right side. Tassels in the colour of antique gold can be seen draping the fabric. This portrait of Hertha differs from earlier ones, which were kept in pastel colours. Here, the fair complexion, the crimson shawl and rose, the golden mask, but most strikingly the white glove, contrast against the grey-blue background and the varying shades of black.
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. This portrait was painted in 1962, in the painter's studio in Vienna.
Dorota Błoniarz
Author / creator
Object type
painting
Technique
olej
Material
canvas, oil-color
Creation time / dating
Creation / finding place
Owner
Muzeum - Zamek w Łańcucie
Identification number
Location / status
Castle Museum in Łańcut
20th century
Castle Museum in Łańcut
2. połowa XX wieku
Castle Museum in Łańcut
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