Jan Matejko’s painting ‘Portrait of Zdzisław and Bolesław Włodek’ from 1862 was sold at a Polswiss Art auction for PLN 4,1 million. Together with an auction fee of 20% of the price, the canvas achieved a price of 4,92 million PLN.

‘Portrait of Zdzisław and Bolesław Włodek’ was painted by Matejko in 1862, in the same year as one of his most outstanding works, ‘Stańczyk’. The artist was 24 years old at the time. The portrait depicts the sons of Roman Włodek, a Kraków landowner. The 10-year-old Zdzisław and four years younger Bolesław are portrayed en face. Standing, they hold hands, with the older one embracing the younger brother, putting his hand on his left shoulder. The pronounced tenderness of this scene was a novelty in classical Biedermeier 19th-century depictions.

The portrait is also filled with symbolism – the heavy curtain in the background can be read as an unknown future, and the carved throne chair with patterned upholstery perhaps symbolises the important positions that the sons of this illustrious family were to occupy in the future.

“Portrait of Zdzisław and Bolesław Włodek” is another Matejko painting sold at the Polswiss Art auction. In 2020, a private collector bought “Portrait of Prof. Dr Karol Gilewski” for PLN 6,962,000. This is one of the most expensive paintings sold at auction in the history of the Polish auction market.

Matejko painted a series of portraits in which the most important characteristic of the artist, namely the ability to create figures with extremely expressive physiognomic and psychological features, can be very clearly discerned.

“Each element of the composition is characterised by extremely precise rendering of detail. The portrait of the Włodek brothers is a work of the highest class and a complete rarity on the Polish art market”, says the description of the work in the auction catalogue.

At the same auction the paintings by Józef Chełmoński, Jan Styka, Juliusz Kossak, Jacek Malczewski and Teodor Axentowicz were sold.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński