Wladyslaw Czachórski (1850 Lublin -1911 Munich), Invitation, 1897.

oil, duplicated canvas, 48.3 × 71.1 cm
signed and dated p. g.: Czachórski 1897
on the cutting a sticker from the Philadelphia Art Gallery
The featured painting is one of the best paintings by the brush of Wladyslaw Czachórski. It was painted in 1897 at the height of the painter's fame. His depictions of women in satin shimmering gowns won stunning acclaim from critics and the Munich art community. His studio was regularly visited by Prince Regent Luitpold Karl Joseph Wilhelm Wittelsbach (1821-1912), and Czachórski was repeatedly invited to the prince's luncheons, which ended with a cigar smoking social in the regent's study. His paintings were much sought after, and many of them ended up in the prince's collection. It happened that Czachórski returned to his best realizations refining details or looking for new compositional solutions, such as the painting Do you want a rose? from 1879 (from the collection of the Lviv Art Gallery, dimension 95 × 123 cm) repeated in another composition from the same year from a private collection (oil, canvas, 66 × 52.2 cm ). An analogous variant of "Invitation" from 1896 is also known (in Old Master&19th Paintings Drawings&Watercolours, Christie, London, 07.07.2010, item 285, p. 154). Of his pursuit of perfection, one wrote: "He delved into the subject of his paintings with infinite diligence, still not quite satisfied with his work. If no longer a spiritual attitude, his awe of nature, his enjoyment of the world and objects, and his tireless conscientiousness brought him close to the Dutch masters, whose works were to him unsurpassed prototypes. There was no coquetry in his fluid, free brushstrokes, which, for all their certainty, retained a subtle freshness. He strived for perfect unity of form and color, and always starting from the most precise, detailed mastery of form, he despised in his independent mastery all cheap, visual effects. He was characterized by the joy of conscious taste in choosing a motif that always matched the serious refinement of his own personality. He had class and elegance inseparable from his personality, not just his artistic personality. The Pole, in whom there was something of the Frenchman, spoke from his mature, independent paintings, from the moment he found himself and his own style." Alex Braun [1911], Wladyslaw Czachórski [in:], Halina Stępień, Artyści polscy w środowisku monachijskim w latach 1828-1914, PAN Krakow, p. 91).

"As a painter, Czachórski is entitled to the name of master, for he was indeed one. Beyond this refined virtuoso of the pencil, beyond the painter in whose work was reflected the entire achievements of the culture acquired by mankind in the field of painting technique, stood a great artist, feeling in his own way both the lofty tasks of art and the beauty of nature in its noblest manifestations. Wladyslaw Czachórski died in the fullness of life, at the height of fame, success, in the fullness of proliferation of his activity rich in results. With his loss, an isolated place in Polish painting, which he had raised to first-rate importance abroad, was deserted. He left no imitators, because his art was too subtle, too detached from the moment to have proselytes. All the better: nothing is more dangerous to the fame of an artist than mindless epigones, popularizing his tendencies with clumsy imitations. In Czachórski, man was associated with the artist with an inseparable knot. Knowing the man, one understood the expression of his work. He lived art - and in his conception art was identified with the concept of beauty, and beauty with good, and good with truth.... So he loved art in its many manifestations, considering his studio as a temple and himself as a priest of the idea to which he devoted himself."
Henryk Piątkowski, Władysław Czachórski, Monografje artystyczne, vol. XI, Warsaw 1927. , s. 7.