Lot 31: JOZEF CHELMONSKI

JOZEF CHELMONSKI POLISH 1851-1925 QUADRIGA signed and dated Joseph Chelmonski Paris 1882 lower right oil on canvas 61 by 93cm., 24 by 36¾in.

Probably Adolphe Goupil, Paris
Dr. Joseph Levine, New York
Michael Legutko, Lippert Gallery, NY
Barbara Piasecka Johnson, New Jersey
Sale: Art for Autism at Jasna Polana, 21 September 2002, lot 4
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Painted in Paris in 1882, it is probable that the present work was first acquired by the famous French art dealer Adolphe Goupil, for whom Jozef Chelmonski had signed a pre-emptive agreement in 1878.

Chelmonski was a student of Wojciech Gerson at the Warsaw academy and of Herman Anschütz at the Munich academy, where he met and befriended Jozef Brandt, Wladyslaw Czachorski and Maksymilian Gierymski. In 1875 he settled in Paris, where he lived for over ten years and gained considerable acclaim. He became especially known for depictions of galloping teams of horses set in a perspective so as to give the impression that the horses were moving directly towards the viewer, as in the present work.