Marcello Bacciarelli (1731 Rome-1818 Warsaw), Study of an ox, ca. 1805.

oil, canvas, 42 × 56 cm
On the back handwritten inscription: "Peint par Marcel de Bacciarelli premier peintre du Roi de Pologne Stanislas Auguste"
The painting has the expert opinion of Ms. Zofia Nowak
(long-time curator of the National Museum in Warsaw)
and Prof. Andrzej Ryszkiewicz (1922-2005),
long-time director of the Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Reproduced and described in:
Katalog zabytków XVIII wieku w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie, Kraków 1906, p.16, no. 16
F. Kopera, Malarstwo polskie od XVI do XVIII w., Warsaw 1926, p.282, il..260
A. Chyczewska, Marceli Bacciarelli, Life - Creativity - Works, II, Poznań 1970, p.181, no.212 b
Provenance:
Private collection, Cracow (deposited at the National Museum in Cracow since 1906)
Private collection, Poland

"The painting in question is a study for a large altarpiece composition Saint Isidore - Blessing of Labor (oil, canvas, 325 × 194.5 cm, now owned by the National Museum in Warsaw (ill. no. 2), commissioned from the artist by Joachim Chreptowicz for a Uniate chapel in his estate in Szczorsy near Novogrudok. This monumental composition was preceded by a smaller sketch of the whole composition (St. Isidore plowing a role, oil, canvas, 55 × 41 cm, also in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw, illustration 1). Bacciarelli - the first royal painter of Stanislaw August and precursor of national Polish painting - also painted on commission for the aristocracy. Joachim
Litavor Chreptowicz was the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania in 1793, who settled in Warsaw from 1795 and devoted himself entirely to scientific work. He built a French-style palace complex in Szczorsy (il. 3), where he placed a collection of ancient manuscripts, geographical maps and a library with rare books. It was for this project that he commissioned St. Isidore from Bacciarelli, who preceded the monumental painting with the featured image. "Study of an Ox." The presented painting [...] "is painted with a very subtle, chiaroscuro technique and is maintained in warm colors with golden tones so characteristic of his work." Bacciarelli's painting on the art market is a unique phenomenon, what's more, the painting Study of an Ox was put up for auction for the first time.

The quoted excerpts are from the expert opinion of Ms. Zofia Nowak