Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski

Private Collection, San Gabriel, California (by circa 1912)
Thence by descent

Tygodnik Illustrowany (The Illustrated Weekly), 1876, no. 2 (the woodcut after the painting illustrated)

Unlined; recently cleaned. Under UV: Inpainting to address craquelure at upper left and in spots at the upper right.
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The present work depicts the peasants' forfeiture of grain in a yeomen's village, a subject that could be found in other Eastern European cultural and literary sources of the nineteenth century and Wierusz-Kowalski's early work. Specifically, Rekwizycja (Requistion), like several other early paintings by the artist, is inspired by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz (Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman's Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse). 

Until today, the work has been known only through its 1876 woodcut illustration in Tygodnik Illustrowany, as it has been untraced in a California collection for over a century.