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Portrait of Actress Hornung in the Image of Ophelia

Artur Grottger

Basic information

ID: Г-I-112
Author: Artur Grottger
Name: Portrait of Actress Hornung in the Image of Ophelia
Date of creation: 1859
Technique: watercolour
Material: paper watercolour
Dimensions: 32 x 23 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: portraiture

Information about author

Author: Artur Grottger
Author in the original: Artur Grottger
Artist's lifetime: 1837–1867
Country: Austrian Empire
Biography: Artur Grottger was born in 1837 in the village of Otynevychi in the Lviv region (former Ottyniowice, Eastern Galicia). He studied at the Lviv School of Painting of Jan Maszkowski and the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and Vienna (1852–1858). Artur Grottger is a leading representative of Polish Romanticism, as well as a painter, periodical illustrator, graphic artist, and watercolourist. He is the author of six patriotic art cycles regarding the January Uprising against the Russian occupation of Poland of 1863, portraits, and local history materials. Artur Grottger died after a severe illness in Amélie-les-Bains, France, in 1867. He was buried in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv (field No.95).

Object description

The portrait represents a waist-length figure of a young woman; the image of the woman is turned three quarters to the viewer's left. The girl is dressed in a white dress with a fresh rose on her chest, from under which one can see a blue ribbon. The brown hair is long; she let her hair down to the chest and laid behind the ear on the left side. Her face is decorated with a massive dark round earring. The defining feature of the face is large and wide-open eyes. The author skillfully depicted a high forehead, little and slightly snub nose, and full and half open lips. The background of the work is shown in dark colors; there are no architectural elements in the right part of the composition.

Inscriptions

In the right lower corner of the work there is an author's inscription "Arthur Grottger" and date 1859.

Portrayed person