Józef Peszka
1767–1831 · Polish painter and art professor, portraitist and watercolorist
Józef Peszka (1767 – 1831) was a Polish painter who worked from the late eighteenth century into the early nineteenth. He is remembered mainly for his portraits and watercolor landscapes, and also for his teaching in Kraków, the city where he was born and died.
He first learned drawing from Dominik Oesterreicher, an Austrian painter living in Kraków, and then studied painting in Warsaw under Franciszek Smuglewicz. After a portrait of Hugo Kołłątaj, he was introduced to members of the Great Sejm and received commissions for portraits of other prominent Polish political figures, work that kept him busy until 1792. Until 1812 he travelled widely through Lithuania and Russia, producing watercolor and sepia landscapes with staffage as well as some vedute. From 1807 to 1810 he served as court painter to Prince Michał Hieronim Radziwiłł at Nesvizh.
In 1813 he returned to Kraków and taught art at the Jagiellonian University. In 1818 he helped organize the newly founded School of Fine Arts, where he became a professor, and a few months before his death in 1831 he was named its director. In these years he focused mainly on portraits of military heroes, wealthy businessmen and their families, and Polish intellectuals, and he also painted historical scenes, which show Smuglewicz's influence, and some scenes from Classical mythology.
Works (2)
The sitter appears in a coat and beside a book, objects usually associated with learning, though the painting itself does not clearly reveal what the artist intended by them. The work is held by the National Museum in Warsaw.
Portrait of Hugo Kołłątaj, painted by Józef Peszka in 1791. Executed in oil on canvas, it is held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The available record says little about its commission or composition, so the work is best approached by looking closely at the sitter's pose, dress and handling of paint. The date places it in late eighteenth-century Poland.
Where to see the work
- National Museum in Warsaw Warsaw · 1
- Royal Castle in Warsaw Warsaw · 1
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Franciszek Smuglewicz 1745–1807