Teodor Axentowicz (1859 Brasov/Romania - 1938 Krakow), Lirnik

pastel, cardboard, 97 × 67 cm light frame
Signed p. d.: "T. Axentowicz"

For the first time in his oeuvre Teodor Axentowicz paints the figure of a lyricist - an old man with a long gray beard and a lyre - in one of the parts in the monumental "Panorama of Racławice" in 1894. This is how Waldemar Okoń mentioned this figure, "in the group of figures praying under the cross for victory, next to the old man - a confederate - was placed a "dida" lyricist, kneeling at the head of this group, which, given the scale of the work and the accompanying national-patriotic contexts, is undoubtedly a form of immortalizing a tradition that lasted throughout the 19th century." (Waldemar Okoń, "National Allegories. Studia z dziejów sztuki polskiej XIX wieku", Wrocław 1992, p. 18, quoted by A.Król, B.Deptuła, "Teodor Axentowicz. Polish Armenian", PGS Sopot 2014, p.60).
Axentowicz returned to the figure of the wandering folk singer many more times. He often depicted him as a loner wandering in winter scenery (a well-known painting from around 1900 includes: "The Lyricist and the Girl" (oil, cardboard. 60.5 × 49.8 cm; from the collection of the Boris Voznytsky National Art Gallery of Lviv), as well as sitting under a tree in the company of a young girl or child. The work presented at the auction is precisely an exceptional example of depicting the figure of a lyricist - like an inspired bard and a young girl listening from the sidelines, with her hands folded in a gesture of prayer. The painting was executed in pastel technique, in which Axentowicz had no equal.