Summer

Painting belonging to a dozen paintings that the Ministry of Culture and Art bought for the Łańcut Castle from the Heim Gallery in London in 1981. These were paintings that Alfred Potocki took abroad when he left Łańcut in 1944 before the approaching Soviet front. The (pastel) painting shows a portrait of a young woman holding a bouquet of field flowers with ears of wheat, personifying summer. The painting is signed in the lower right corner “Anna Rajecka fecit” and was made around 1830. Anna Rajecka (married name Gault de Saint Germain, born around 1762 in Warsaw, died in 1832 in Paris) was a Polish painter, holder of a scholarship by King Stanislaus II Augustus, who sent her to Paris to study. She studied painting with Louis Marteau, and possibly with Marcello Bacciarelli, and thanks to them she found her way to the King’s court, attending the famous Thursday Dinners, which were attended by few women. From about 1780, she stayed in Paris within the above-mentioned scholarship, where she acquired painting (from Jean-Baptiste Greuze) and perfected the pastel technique, which became her favourite. She might also take lessons from Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun. In Paris she married the miniaturist painter Pierre-Marie Gault de Saint Germain and settled in France for good. Despite the king’s disappointment at her decision to remain in France, he still supported her financially in Paris, in return for sending her paintings to Poland. In Paris, she became involved with the artists centred around Jacques-Louis David, who provided guidance and improved her work. At the end of her life she lost her sight. The artist painted mainly portraits, rarely genre scenes, she also made miniatures and drawings. She is best known for portraying women or even girls, in the Greuze type. The painting kept in the Łańcut Castle is one of these portraits; it was erroneously believed to be a portrait of Julia Lubomirska, the daughter of the duchess and wife of marshal (as evidenced by a card with calligraphic writing on the reverse). It is one of four pastels depicting the four seasons, symbolised by half figures of girls holding attributes that identify which season they incarnate. According to S. Wasylewski, it may actually be a self-portrait of the painter.