Lot 1197 | Dreaming Girl

CZACHÓRSKI, LADISLAUS VON
1850 Grabowczyk/Lublin - 1911 Munich


Title: Dreaming Girl.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 36 x 57cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower right: Czachorski 1896.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private collection, Europe.

The gaze of the "dreaming girl", who seems to look through the viewer, captivates in a completely different way than the both paintings by Eugen von Blaas (Lot 1195, Lot 1196). One can observe her "unnoticed", as it were, and enjoy every detail of this fascinatingly haptically painted painting - the image in front of her inner eye, however, remains the secret of the dreamer.
The young lady had certainly sat upright on the upholstery with a sloping backrest at first to complete the rich embroidery with needle and thread, which she holds in her lap. Now the young body has slid forward on the seat, her head rests on the edge of the backrest and she dreams with her eyes open, the needle still in her hand. The result is a charming, light, diagonal arch in various shades of pink, cream and white against the dark green of the tapestry in the background and the seat cushion. This light play of colours is taken up by the lush bouquet of flowers in the upper right-hand corner of the image and by a white flowering houseplant in the lower left-hand corner.

The painter of this painting, the Polish-born Ladislaw Czachorski, is convincing in composition and content with his fascinating technique, which proves him to be a grandmaster of history painting of his time. In this small painting he shows that he is not inferior in quality to his teacher, the great Carl von Piloty. Czachorsky, who was born in Poland, came to Munich after his first training in Warsaw with a stopover at the Dresden Academy. Here he became a student of Piloty, who influenced the Munich art scene and especially history painting. Besides genre paintings and portraits Czachorski also specialised in Shakespearean scene motifs. Already at a young age Czachorski was celebrated by the public and critics, e.g. in 1879 he received a gold medal for a Hamlet painting at the 2nd International Art Exhibition in Munich's Glass Palace. His portraits of young ladies, often in historical costumes and in richly decorated boudoirs, were so popular with buyers that they had to wait up to two years to receive a work by the artist.
Even today's viewer of the "dreaming girl", "saturated" with completely different viewing habits, can experience this fascination when the eye revels in the tactile promise the artist makes with the delicate execution of the most varied materials presented side by side. Czachorski devotes the same attention to the surface design of all the details in the image and is closely related to Eugen de Blaas in this respect.
The gaze of the young dreamer leaves the viewer alone with all the splendour, but is able to make him feel the all too human feeling of daydreaming, removed from time.