January SUCHODOLSKI, Genre Scene

Watercolor, pen, 11 x 15 cm, description on back, sticker.

Called the "Polish Vernet", the painter-battleman January Suchodolski was self-taught in his earlier period, serving in the army as an amateur painter. He participated in the November Uprising, and after its fall went to Rome in 1832, where he studied in the studio and under the direction of Horace Vernet. He returned to Warsaw in 1837, and in 1839 traveled to St. Petersburg, appointed a member of the Academy of Fine Arts there. In 1847 he traveled to Paris. He was one of the founders of the Warsaw Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts (1859). He painted battle paintings, usually of the Napoleonic wars, horse portraits and genre scenes with a motif of soldiers and slender, beautiful Arabian horses. The patriotic content, vivid colors and precise drawing of Suchodolski's paintings brought him real fame and success.