Louvre at night (1892)
Œuvre du peintre 🇵🇱 Aleksander Gierymski

#Art #Gierymski #Emotion

For more than sixty years, Żydówka z pomarańczami (Jewish Woman with Oranges) – one of Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski’s masterworks – was listed among the works of art stolen and lost during the Second World War. Residing today in the National Museum in Warsaw, the painting had gone missing after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, as Nazi soldiers destroyed and looted works of art en masse. Finished in 1881 and originally purchased by the National Museum in Warsaw in 1928, the recovery of Gierymski’s painting from a German auction house in 2010 was a momentous event. The efforts of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to reclaim the canvas lasted nearly a year. It was no easy task – German law offered no legal recourse for a rightful owner to regain a stolen work after such a long, uninterrupted period in other hands. Consequently, Poland was forced to buy back Jewish Woman with Oranges, with the PZU Foundation bankrolling the second purchase of the painting and covering the costs of the its restoration. The recovered painting was in very poor condition and returning it to its former glory took many months of meticulous work. Today, "Żydówka z pomarańczami" once again glows with its clear colors and a sense of depth, air and light fill the landscape depicting Warsaw’s Powiśle district in the background. The poor, life-weary woman, with highlighted cheeks and prominent wrinkles, wears colorful red and orange clothing including a cap on her head and a scarf on her shoulders. She stands looking directly at us with two baskets of oranges in her hands hoping to sell but a few. Her once-beautiful face, wrinkled by time, sadness and resignation, still reflects a human dignity that refuses to succumb to life’s misfortunes.

Żydówka z pomarańczami (Jewish Woman with Oranges) by Aleksander Gierymski (Polish) - Oil on canvas / 1880-1881 - National Museum in Warsaw (Poland) #womeninart #oilpainting #art #womensart #portraitofawoman #PolishArt #NationalMuseuminWarsaw #AleksanderGierymski #Gierymski #artwork #Polishartist

The painting shows a Jewish shopkeeper, whom the artist immortalized in another image Jewess with Lemons. The woman has poor clothing, a cap on her head, and a scarf on her shoulders. She is carrying two baskets of oranges. The background depicts the roofs of Warsaw houses. The woman's face is serious. Her highlighted cheeks as well as prominent wrinkles heighten the effect of sadness and helplessness, which emanates directly from her character. In contrast, there are the oranges whose color is a reference to life, heat, and the southern climate. [after wikipedia]

Aleksander Gierymski | Jewess with Oranges | Oil on canvas 1881

Stolen by nazis in '44 from the National Museum of Warsaw; appeared in an in Buxtehude, Germany in 2010; returned to the National Museum in 2011 (after an undisclosed compensation was paid)

#painting #modernart #gierymski