Artur Grottger - Album - Paddle of Tears ( War), Lituania, Published by Adam Kaczurba circa 1890 [ 17 heliogravures, January Uprising ].

Artur Grottger - Album - The Fall of Tears ( War), Lituania, Published by Adam Kaczurba, Krakow circa 1890.

Part one - The Fall of Tears - 11 heliogravures reflected at Paulussen's in Vienna.

Part two - Liutania - 6 heliogravures - printed by Adam Kaczurba - Cracow.

Titles under the compositions in Polish and French and German. Beige-brown hardcover with numerous gilt and embossed elements. Central Design: The main motif is an allegorical female figure with wings, seated with an open book, surrounded by putti.

Details: The whole is complemented by dense floral and architectural ornamentation, as well as grotesque and masquerade motifs.

Binding with abrasions, repaired, original boards, wings in the past repaired one touch-up.

Small yellowing - foxing of backings under heliogravures. Rips and folds of the edges of the pages with text and soft covers. otherwise good condition.

Format : 33 x 47 [cm].

Artur Grottger (born November 11, 1837 in Ottyniowice, died December 13, 1867 in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda) - Polish painter, one of the leading representatives of Romanticism in Polish painting, illustrator, draftsman, author of a series on the January Uprising.

"Grottger, despite such a short life, left a huge body of work. He most readily expressed himself in pencil or crayon drawings, very carefully worked out. He arranged these drawings into cycles, the most famous of which - Polonia, Lituania and War - deal with insurrectionary themes. These albums became one of the ways of manifesting national mourning, along with black costumes and patriotic jewelry.

Grottger's art became an expression of national despair over the defeat of the uprising. The scenes Grottger depicted were "demonstratively marked with the stigma of the tragedy of blood sacrifice, of heroism that cannot bring victory."

Grottger's drawings were created mainly during the artist's stay in the courts of Eastern Galicia, where memories of the uprising and its victims were still vivid. Coming into contact with women mourning their husbands and sons allowed Grottger to faithfully portray their pain. Thanks to this, his drawings became an expression of the feelings of the entire nation. Also noteworthy is the narrative nature of each series, making them form whole stories that became a source of inspiration for writers. "