Oil on canvas, signed in faint monogram l.d. "E.B.", inscribed on the reverse "K.E. Boratyński 27 J'Enfer Paris".
Dimensions in frame: 47x40 cm (41x33 cm)
Emil Boratynski (1806 or 1810 - 1876 Paris) created under this pseudonym Emil Jurkiewicz or Emil Edmund Korczak Boratynski. He was a colorful character and mystifier, and was active in exile in the days after the November Uprising. Boratyński came from near Cracow and studied painting at the School of Fine Arts under Jozef Brodowski. In the 1930s he began exhibiting under a pseudonym. The British Royal Academy noted two paintings exhibited under this name. He was a bon-vivant, claiming to be an aristocrat, using the Korczak coat of arms. He divided his lavish life between the European metropolises of London, Paris and Rome. Finally, in 1842, he settled in Florence where he established a painting studio and began teaching at the Academy. He was acquainted with notables of Polish émigré life, poets, artists and aristocrats. Among them were Adam Mickiewicz and Cyprian Kamil Norwid. He portrayed people associated with the milieu of the Lambert Hotel. The painter also kept in touch with his country, exhibiting at least three times at the Cracow Society of Friends of Fine Arts. In 1850-56 he stayed in Warsaw. Among other things, he exhibited at an exhibition in Lviv in 1894. Works in the National Museum in Warsaw and European private collections.
