On October 31, 2018, the Polish Post issued a series of "Lost Works of Art" consisting of 3 postage stamps.
During the Second World War, a huge number of various works of art disappeared from Polish museums and private collections. Some of them were irretrievably lost during bombings and fires in buildings, some were confiscated, stolen or taken away as trophies. Modern historians talk about a colossal figure of 500 thousand paintings, sculptures and other unique exhibits. For several decades, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland has been making intensive efforts to inventory and return at least part of these collections.
The Polish Post has also joined this process, releasing a rather unusual series of "Lost Works of Art".
Three stamps of the series with a face value of 2.60, 2.60 and 3.2 Polish zlotys show black and white reproductions of paintings by famous Polish artists that disappeared during World War II. These are the paintings "View of Zamość" by Marcin Zaleski (1840-1848), "Pier in Solec" (1883) by Aleksander Girymski and "View of Krakow" (1898) by Julian Fałat.
By the way, there is even a mobile application in Poland called "ArtSherlock" - which allows you to check whether a particular painting is on the list of works of art that disappeared in 1939-1945. To do this, just take a photo of the painting on your mobile phone and the application will contact the database of the Ministry of Culture and check for matches with the images in the database.
Among the 25 most valuable paintings that disappeared during World War II is "The Wharf in Solec", painted by the Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski in 1883.
Aleksander Gierymski is a Polish artist, a representative of realism in Polish painting, a predecessor of Polish impressionism. The artist was born in Warsaw in 1850, studied painting first in his homeland, then in Munich. Gierymski traveled a lot and lived abroad for a long time in 1873-1879, mainly in Germany and Italy, where he honed his artistic skills.
In 1879-1888, Gierymski lived in Warsaw. This period became the most fruitful for the master. The artist, fascinated by his home city, paints numerous views of Warsaw and scenes from the lives of its inhabitants. A special place in his work is occupied by genre scenes illustrating the everyday life of the city's residents. Aleksander Gierymski was a tireless observer of life, and his paintings depict parts of the city that rarely attracted the attention of artists before him: the poor quarters of the Old Town, Povola or Solec, and the factory outskirts.
"The Wharf in Solec" created in 1883 belongs to the so-called Warsaw period. The painting depicts the outskirts of Warsaw - Solec. A typical suburban landscape, the banks of the Vistula, built up with small houses, carelessly abandoned boats, rafts pulled by horse teams, figures of fishermen and peasants engaged in everyday work. Despite the ordinary landscape, sometimes littered and not very attractive in essence, the painting as a whole is perceived as a work of exceptional artistic value, full of warm tones of the misty glow of the evening sunset and penumbra.
However, Gierymski's works from the Warsaw period did not find understanding in modern Polish society. Misunderstood and undervalued in his homeland, the artist almost lost his livelihood, and in 1888 he left Warsaw and went abroad.
Перейти в каталог
I apologize for any errors or inaccuracies