Feliks Sypniewski
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Feliks Sypniewski (1830-1903) was a Polish painter and artist who painted mostly historic battle scenes drawn from the borderlands of Poland and Germany (Teutonic Knights or Polish Nobility).
He was born in 1830 at Skoraszewice near Pempowo, lived and worked mostly in Poznań and Warsaw and moved to Paris in the 1890s. He was buried at the famous Père LaChaise Cemetery in 1903 under a false name. See also Sypniewski.
His paintings and drawings are nowadays sold at auction houses all over the world such as 'artnet', the 'Burchard Galleries in Switzerland', or 'artbiznes' in Poland.
His oil on canvas Knights From a Religious Order (also called The Teutonic Knights), was taken from the Lublin Museum in Poland during the occupation (1934-1945) when it was inventoried by the Germans and numbered III BR/7 and possibly taken back to Germany. It is now lost. This painting records the Teutonic Knights' retreat after the Battle of Grunwald in Tannenberg. On the morning of July 15, 1410, the armies of King Wladyslaw Jagiello (1350-1434) met them.
In the painting Prince Jozef Sypniewski we can see to the left a Polish Lancer of the French Imperial Garde, and to the right the uniform of the Grenadier a'cheval. This event took place between 1804-1814, duringthe Napoleonic Occupation of Poland. This reproduction of Felix Sypniewski's original was bought by Mathias Bersolm of the "Society For the Encouragement of the Fine Arts" in Warsaw.
The Society was founded to popularise and promote Polish Art in 1860 and operated until 1939. Its aim was also to organise educational activities in the arts world, to support artists and organise exhibitions. It build up a collection of Polish art and gave stipends to aspiring Polish artists.
[edit] Sources
- Pamietnik Towarszystwa Przyjaciol Sztuk Pienknych w Krakowie 1854-1904 by Swieykowski, Emmanuel. -Wyd, 1. - Krakow - 1905
- http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/FelixSypniewski.html - article called "Felix Sypniewski" by Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewski B.F.A.(2000)
