Kajetan Wincenty Kielisiński (1908 - 1849 ), 3 figures from the series Folk Types

Condition
framed work, boxing

Biography
Polish graphic artist and illustrator, librarian. He was the son of Kacper (a court official) and Katarzyna (née Kloska). He graduated from the gymnasium in Pinczow (1828), then took up studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Warsaw University; his teacher of drawing and lithography was Jan Feliks Piwarski. He interrupted his studies after the outbreak of the November Uprising. He fought in the ranks of the uprising with the rank of second lieutenant; after the fall of the uprising he was unable to return to Warsaw. He lived in Krakow for a while, and in 1834-39 was the custodian of Gwalbert Pawlikowski's collection in Medyka. In 1839 he found employment as a librarian for Tytus Działyński. As custodian of the Kórnik library, he was the author of its first catalogs. He cooperated with Działyński in his publishing activities, including compiling tables with images of seals for the Collection of Lithuanian Laws 1339-1529 (published in 1841). He also worked on the reconstruction of the Kórnik castle and garden. He again took part in the 1848 uprising with the rank of captain, and was wounded. After a short stay in prison, he returned to work in Kórnik in the summer of 1848, and died suddenly six months later. Shortly before his death (1848) he married Apolonia, née Gostynski. He was the creator of many etchings and drawings, devoted to folklore, life of Polish villages and towns, monuments, landscapes. He was one of the first to make ex-librises in the Polish lands. He collected materials for planned works - "Polish Antiquities" and "Folk Costumes"; many engravings were published by Jan Konstanty Żupański in Kielisiński's Album (1853). Kielisinski's graphic works, drawings, sketchbooks and correspondence were kept by the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as national museums (Krakow, Poznan, Warsaw) and well-known libraries (Jagiellonian, Ossolineum, Warsaw University).