An old heavy-set man, dressed in gala attire. The convoluted fate of the portrait of Marshal Edward Miłkowski, painted by Józef Mehoffer

Abstract

In August 1905, Józef Mehoffer undertook to paint a portrait of the district marshal Edward Miłkowski, the owner of Gorlice. The painting was to be included in the gallery of portraits of county council marshals in Gorlice. The painting process lasted more than three weeks and was carefully recounted by the painter in his letters to his wife Jadwiga. Mehoffer exhibited the magnificent portrait of Miłkowski the same year at the annual exhibition of the Society of Polish Artists “Sztuka” in Kraków. At the time, the Artist also made a replica (author’s copy) of Miłkowski’s portrait for himself. The original hung in the meeting room of the District Council in Gorlice, while the replica was shown by Mehoffer at art exhibitions (Vienna 1908; Kraków 1964). In the autumn of 1920, Miłkowski’s portrait from Gorlice was so badly damaged in a fire that it could no longer be restored and the work was irretrievably lost. What remained was Mehoffer’s own copy, shown at an exhibition at Krakow’s National Museum in 1964, which Zbigniew Mehoffer, the artist’s son, later sold in 1970 to the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

The author of this paper attempts to unravel the complicated fate of the portrait of Edward Miłkowski and its author’s copy, using unknown archival sources acquired through extensive research queries.