Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski

Gillet Family
Ralph Dickman, Tacoma, Washington
Baroness Cancae
Willoughby-Toschi Gallery, San Francisco
Acquired from the above in 1968

Possibly, Paris, Salon, 1900

Tygodnik ilustrowany, no. 113, 1892

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has not been restored for some time and dirty, yellowed varnish is clearly visible throughout the painting, particularly over the sky. There do not appear to be any restorations and overall the condition is very good. There is possibly some slight thinness to some of the thin dark bridles and reins of the horses, particularly the white horses, and possibly some slight thinness around the tree on the right side. This is very minor and we expect the picture to clean very well. The patch of thinness in the grasses in the center left is original. Overall the condition is excellent.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Residing in Munich from 1873, Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski was a painter of his native Poland's customs and rural life. The artist approached his subjects narratively, in compositions full of dynamism and detail rivaling the work of his mentor Jozef Brandt (see lot 17). While in his early period Wierusz-Kowalski painted serene or humorous scenes from the Polish countryside, he is best remembered for his portraits of the horse and rider. In a series of troika (a three-horse drawn cart or sled) scenes, Wieursz-Kowalski excelled in depicting the natural environment, from white and gray snowy landscapes to, in rarer instances like The Race, varying shades of green and gold suggesting the verdant fields of spring and summer.  In the present work, a farmer, having repurposed his hay cart and powerful field horses into a racecart, looks intently at the viewer (the barely discernable teams on the horizon leave this racer's victory in question). The wide, horizontal picture plane affords a dramatic visual sweep of fields under a vast gray-blue sky, the setting for this exciting, strenuous event.  Wierusz-Kowalski deftly handles the paint to create dazzlingly realistic effects: the sheen of the horses' glossy coats and the water splashing against the cart as it moves through a shallow stream.  While a common rural tradition in Poland's farming communities, the racing scene, like many of the artist's most successful compositions, had an exotic appeal to his European collectors. Moreover, Wieursz-Kowalski's work had a particularly important interest to Americans, with his evocative works attracting numerous collectors from New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Many of the most prominent American buyers were urban businessmen who romanticized country life as beneficial to good health and morals--particularly appealing as their fortunes were made from the industrialization of city centers. As Edward Strahan's nineteenth century inventory of the Art Treasures of America (Philadelphia, 1879) attests, Wierusz-Kowalksi's work was held in some of the most significant collections of the era, alongside masterworks by artists such as Jules Breton, William Bouguereau, and Ludwig Knaus.