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Portrait of Franciszek Rzewuski

Giovanni Battitsa Lampi

Basic information

ID: Ж-181
Author: Giovanni Battitsa Lampi
Name: Portrait of Franciszek Rzewuski
Date of creation: 18th c.
Country: Italy
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions: 73 x 61.5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: the Lubomirski collection
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Giovanni Battitsa Lampi
Author in the original: Giovanni Battitsa Lampi
Artist's lifetime: 1751–1830
Country: Italy
Biography: Giovanni Battista Lampi was among the most significant portrait painters in Central and Eastern Europe in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries. His academic style, influenced mainly by the portraits of the neoclassicist Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, became a model and canon for the artistic culture of the Habsburg Empire. His art often served the ideology of absolutism. The artist was born in Romeno and was taught by his father, Matthias Lampi, and uncle, Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni. Later, after moving to Verona, he completed his studies under the guidance of Francesco Lorenzi. Giovanni Battista Lampi soon settled in Innsbruck and gained the favour of the Habsburg-Lorraine royal dynasty by painting a portrait of Maria Elisabeth, the sister of Emperor Joseph II. In 1783, the painter moved to Vienna, quickly becoming a favourite portraitist of the imperial family and court. Later, with the support of the portraitist Marcello Bacciarelli, Giovanni Battista Lampi moved to Warsaw, where he worked at the court of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the last King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, from 1788 to 1791. In 1791, the artist went to Saint Petersburg, and almost ten years later, he returned to Vienna.

Object description

The portrait was most likely created during the artist's Warsaw period when he painted dozens of portraits of Polish noblemen while staying at the court of Stanislaw August Poniatowski. Giovanni Battista Lampi employed the typical compositional scheme of a half-figure portrait. Franciszek Rzewuski is depicted in a static pose, with no emphasis on his psychological character or emotions. Giovanni Battista Lampi presents Franciszek Rzewuski against a dark background, as he does in most of his portraits, vividly outlining the figure of the person portrayed, prompting the observer to focus on it.

Portrayed person