Piotr MICHAŁOWSKI (1800-1855), Horses in a stable, 1832-1835

Watercolor on pencil underdrawing, paper; 35 x 52.3 cm;
Signed p. d.: P. Michałowski.

Letters: Piotr Michałowski 1800-1855. exhibition of the artist's works on the bicentennial of his birth, catalog of the monographic exhibition by Anna Zeńczak and others, National Museum in Cracow, Cracow 2000, cat. item 387.

The most common painting technique used by the author of the offered work was watercolor, inseparable from perfect and light drawing. As Jerzy Sienkiewicz writes: " (...) in the characterization of Polish painting of that era, it is impossible to omit and not distinguish the autonomous role of drawing. The impulse given long ago by Norblin, and taken up by his students, of whom it is enough to mention Plonski and Orlowski, was still working. The note, impression, or improvisation in the light form of a sketch was generally accepted." In his youth, Piotr Michalowski studied drawing in the Cracow studios of Michal Stachowicz, Jozef Brodowski and Franciszek Lampi and, despite his excellent technique and talent, still remained an amateur. On March 2, 1832, after the fiasco of the November Uprising, which was painful for the artist, he decided to leave for France with a strong determination to become a painter; he was then thirty-two years old. The decision, therefore, was a conscious and mature one.
The artist ended up in the studio of Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, most likely on the recommendation of friends of the Ostrowski family. He did not seek prestigious and official schools headed by such prominent painters as Gerard, Gros, Ingres or Delaroche. Piotr Michalowski's choice of teacher gave him freedom in formulating his painting expressions, as Charlet avoided the classical rigor prevalent in academic art of the time, as well as liking watercolor and drawing. An additional advantage of the studio was the friendship linking the teacher with military officers, who made uniforms, armaments or live animals - horses - available for study from nature without hindrance. As Jerzy Sienkiewicz writes: "Michalowski's drawings and watercolors, dated or datable to 1832-1833, reveal the teaching method used in this studio. It boils down to the study from nature of a freely positioned model, without any pretension to a classical arrangement modeled on ancient sculpture."
The years 1832-1835, to which the offered watercolor is dated, fall mainly during Piotr Michałowski's stay in France, where the artist triumphed as an outstanding draughtsman and watercolorist, at the same time selling his works to private collectors, as well as to marchers, including Durand Roul, through whom the artist's paintings were sent to Germany or England. The years 1832-1835 were also the time when, echoing Jerzy Sienkiewicz, the artist shed Mannerist tendencies in his paintings and transformed them to fit into the current of French Romantic painting, "Charlet [Michałowski's teacher] was, after all, a friend of Gericault, who had died a few years before. Charlet's atelier spread the cult of the great Romantic, and from this atmosphere Michalowski could not and did not try to break out."
The information contained in the Cracow catalog accompanying the exhibition devoted to Piotr Michałowski suggests that the offered work was created on commission for sale to one of the Western countries, to find its way into antiquarian circulation in London in time. The authors of the catalog also point out that the reproduced sheet of the "catalog of works" sold by Michałowski in 1832-1837 shows a composition similar to the offered one, differing in the added figure of a stable boy included in the background of the composition. The marshal in charge of the sale coinciding with the offered watercolor was the aforementioned Durand Rouela. The composition with the figure of the stableman appeared in the auction circuit in 1998 and was titled "In the Stables - Horses and the Stableman." The previously cited "catalog of works" sold by Piotr Michalowski was a sketchbook by the author containing preliminary sketches of the offered compositions, as well as the names of the buyers and the sale amounts.
In conclusion, the offered watercolor is a mature example of Piotr Michalowski's work and bears all the most important features of the artist's workshop, such as free drawing, lightness of composition, as well as excellent knowledge of anatomy, which the artist studied meticulously.
Elaborated. Based on:
1. Piotr Michałowski 1800-1855. exhibition of the artist's works on the bicentennial of his birth, catalog of the monographic exhibition by Anna Zeńczak and others, National Museum in Cracow, Cracow 2000;
2. Michałowski ..., Jerzy Sienkiewicz [introduction], Warsaw 1964, pp. 16-30.