Portrait of Ewa Potocka (at a young age)

Ewa Potocka comes from the Kaniеwski family. She was the wife of Joachim Potocki, lieutenant-general of Kamianets-Podilskyi, founder of the Chortkiv Castle Gallery. The portrait can be classified as an "of age" representation. There is also a work in the collection that shows Ewa at an older age. The half-length image of the woman is presented in a slight twist, dressed in a blue dress with lace, on her head is a fashionable silver wig with curly strands cascading down her neck. The dominant feature in the image is the red flower on the woman's chest and the flowing drapery. The main focus is on her face. From the end of the seventeenth century, portraits of noblewomen, along with a change of traditional dress to French fashionable garments, began to imitate European imagery. The composition and colour scheme in the portrait of Ewa Potocka corresponds to European baroque painting, which rapidly gained popularity in provincial art. There is an inscription at the top of the portrait: «EWA Z KANIEWSKICH POTOCKA STAROS: LWOW: GENERAL: LEUT:».

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery