Waclaw SZYMANOWSKI (1859-1930), "Juliusz Słowacki".

Author: Wacław Szymanowski
Title: Juliusz Słowacki
Technique: bronze
Dimensions: 40 x 40 x 21 cm
Signed on the back of the base: "W. Szymanowski"
Inscribed on the base: "4/6 M"
On the base an inscription with an excerpt from Song III of Juliusz Slowacki's poem "Beniowski": "That also one breast be made | Not according to the measure of a tailor but of Fidias! | That one breast, too, like the breast of Memnon | That one breast, too! | Beniowski Song III"

JOB DESCRIPTION:
Waclaw Szymanowski, an excellent sculptor of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, became famous as the author of designs for monuments to outstanding representatives of Polish Romanticism - Frederic Chopin, Artur Grottger or just Juliusz Słowacki.
Waclaw Szymanowski is the author of the concept for a monument to the author of the Ghost King, which was to be erected in Krzemieniec (now Ukraine), the poet's hometown, to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. The project was completed in June 1909. Around this time, a life-size plaster sculpture (now thought to be lost) was created, as well as a series of intimate bronze casts of the monument's main element, i.e. the figure of Juliusz Słowacki, shown in a pensive pose, wearing the poet-bearer's coat.
The monument was erected at the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century at the Church of St. Stanislaus the Bishop and Martyr in Krzemieniec. The statue of Juliusz Słowacki itself was supplemented by an allegorical figure of the Ghost King, taken from the bard's poem.

The design of the Juliusz Słowacki monument is distinguished from other concepts of images of Polish Romantics by its smooth, polished texture and static composition.

The sculpture offered at auction was cast in an edition of six pieces. Works of similar dimensions can be found in the collections of the MNW, the MNK and the Museum of Literature in Warsaw, but no information about the presence of the edition number appears in the catalogs.
On the other hand, plaster casts of the Juliusz Słowacki monument project are in the collections of the MNW and the Jagiellonian University Museum in Cracow.

For more on the Juliusz Słowacki monument project, see, among others, Wacław Szymanowski (1859-1930). Catalog of the exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw, June-July 1981, ed. H. Kotkowska-Bareja, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1981, pp. 18-19, 29, 63-64.


Waclaw Szymanowski's biography is available on the Krakow Auction House website [SEE].

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