Jozef Brandt

Acquired by the present owner's grandfather, circa 1945

Warsaw, Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, 1893

Tygodnik Ilustrowany, Warsaw, no. 183, July 1, 1893, p. 14, illustrated pp. 8-9  
Meisterwerke der Holzschneidekunst, Leipzig, 1894, pl. XIV, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This oil on canvas has been removed from its stretcher and mounted onto masonite which is supported by two vertical slats of wood. There is some instability developing to the paint layer here and there, and it is certainly possibly to remove the board from the canvas and to re-line the canvas in a more traditional fashion. The paint layer has been cleaned. There are a couple of restorations in the upper right corner and a few other small spots in the lower left side of the sky. Elsewhere the condition is very healthy and only a few spots of retouch have added in the hay wagon on the left side and possibly in the waste of the dark greyhound. Essentially there are very few retouches and this large and well preserved picture should be removed from the board to ensure future safety.
"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."

Jozef Brandt painted the present work in 1893, at the peak of his popularity.  The artist's compositions were actively sought by art collectors in his native Poland, throughout Europe and the United States--his work so in demand that many canvases were purchased directly from the easel, the paint still wet. Reflecting Brandt's frame of mine was his confident painting style of relaxed brush strokes and a bold, vivid palette. While many of his works of the late nineteenth century depicted battle scenes, skirmishes, and army advances, an equally masterful number portrayed the quieter moments of the military, like the present work: set in a Cossack military camp on the open plains of the seventeenth century Polish Republic. In the foreground, a buyer wearing a red jacket with riding crop in hand mulls the merits of a horse being ridden for his review. Brandt captures the many details of life in a mobile camp, from roughly-worn jackets and fur caps to a series of carpets used as makeshift tents and thrown on the ground for resting hounds. The work's accuracy comes from the artist's use of props from his collection of costumes, carpets, armory and military equipment.  Unlike Brandt's early horse fair pictures, painted in a fairly static manner, the present work is lively and full of dynamic equine and human figures set in various vignettes.

Upon its 1893 exhibition at Warsaw's Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych (a leading art gallery of the time), the present work was named Zaporozcy (Cossack calvary living in the southeastern frontier of the Polish republic, now the Ukraine). A review in Tygodnik Illustrowany (Warsaw`s most popular illustrated magazine) described Zaporozcy as "a brave portrayal of a military party camp site, a unique depiction of the sky and the open plains, of the horses and hounds, and of the wild, violent faces" (as translated, p. 14). The artistic merits of the painting were also noted in Germany, where the painting was featured a year later in a prominent art book collection.

We would like to thank Mariusz Klarecki for kindly providing the catalogue note.

Please note this work will be sold unframed.