Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Lovers scene/biblical scene

Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Lovers scene/biblical scene

The Lovers (from Adam Mickiewicz's poem 'Czaty [The Ambush]'), or possibly, Haman Begging Esther For His Life (from the biblical Book of Esther).

Oil on panel.

18.5x13.5cm.

Signed and dated lower right 'M. Gottlieb / 1876'.

Provenance: Private collection, Israel. (The painting has been in their family collection since the 1960s, when it was acquired by the current owners' parents in London, UK.)

Condition: Minor scuffs lower center and left; sporadic paint loss elsewhere.

Note 1: The verso bears a label with a typewritten research and statement of authenticity document, dated 1957, prepared by Dr Kazimierz Buczkowski, a Polish art expert active circa the middle of the 20th century.

The label reads (translated from Polish):

JUDGMENT

Subject of the judgment:

A picture painted with oil paints on board. Dimensions: height 18.5cm, width 13.5cm. It shows in the foreground, to the right of the viewer, a young woman in a yellowish dress sitting in a chair. The woman holds her left hand to her bosom, with her right arm resting on the arm of the chair. A man dressed in Polish clothes kneels on the left. In the background, on the left, two figures are visible - one of whom has a shotgun in his hands. The picture is signed in the bottom right: M Gottlieb and in the corner 1876.

Judgment:

The described painting submitted to me for examination by P. Tomaszewski is, in my opinion, an original work by Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879), a sketch for a composition which as far as I know was not created, interesting despite some peculiarities due to its color values, which play such an important role in the work of Maurycy Gottlieb. The artist took the theme for this work from Mickiewicz's ballad 'Czaty' (in the foreground a pair of lovers; in the background the betrayed voivode with a shotgun in his hand and next to him a Cossack). In my opinion the signature on the painting does not raise any doubts, especially when compared with the signatures in the catalog of unknown works by Gottlieb, published in 1938. As was confirmed via X-ray examination with a Hanau [UV?] lamp, the picture shows only minor retouching.

Krakow 28 IV 1957

Dr Kazimierz Buczkowski [hand signed and ink stamped]

Note 2: According to Buczkowski this work is a study for a painting that ended up not being created by Gottlieb (perhaps, due to his death a few years later at a young age). Buczkowski identifies the image as being based on a scene from the short ballad 'Czaty: Ballada ukrainska' by Poland's national poet Adam Mickiewicz, widely considered the greatest poet in all of Polish literature. The ballad, the title of which has been translated variously to 'The Ambush: An Ukrainian Ballad, ' 'The Guards' or 'The Guard, ' can be dated to circa 1828. It tells the story of a voivode (a military leader or governor) who caught his wife cheating. He takes with him a Cossack servant named Naum whom he orders to shoot the unfaithful wife while he himself shoots her lover. However, the Cossack shirks from committing the crime and instead shoots his master. The ballad was translated into Russian by the famed Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin. In 1890-91 the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky published a symphonic ballad titled 'The Voyevoda, Op. 78' based on Pushkin's translation. (For more information about Adam Mickiewicz see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Mickiewicz. For an English translation of the ballad see https://literat-ug-edu-pl.translate.goog/amwiersz/0050.htm?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl= en&_x_tr_pto=sc.)

Note 3: Numerous current observers of this work have commented that it may actually be biblical in nature, showing the banquet scene from the Book of Esther (7:7-8) in which Haman throws himself at Queen Esther's feet, begging her to save him from King Ahasuerus' wrath: "7 And the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden; but Haman remained to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. 8 Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the couch whereon Esther was. [...]"