ALEXANDER ORLOWSKI Man with Hookah

Lithograph, St. Petersburg, 1819. Hand coloured, with monogram and date 14cm x 20cm Alexander Orlowski was born at Warsaw in 1777 and died at St. Petersburg in 1832. He was born into a well-to-do Polish family; his father had an inn in the small provincial town of Sedlitz. There, the boy met princess Isabella Czartoryskich, who was impressed by the boy’s pictures. She sent Alexander, in 1793, for professional training to the Warsaw studio of Jan Piotr Norblin and M. Boccarelli, the court painter of the princes of Czartoryskichs. The early, Warsaw period, of his artistic activity is marked with an interest for the national liberation movement of the Polish people under the leadership of Thaddeus Kosciuszko. In 1794, Orlowski was a volunteer in a partisan group of Kosciuszko. After the defeat of the liberation movement, Orlowski for some time worked with a troupe of traveling actors. In 1802, he moved to Lithuania, and then came to St. Petersburg, where he lived to the end of his life. Under the patronage of prince Adam Czartoryskich, he was admitted into the service of the Grand Duke Constantin Pavlovich. A talented painter, draftsman and graphic artist, Orlowski created a lot of graphic works, pastels, and watercolours of romantic character. In 1809, he was awarded the title of Academician. Genre watercolours depicting working people and scenes from the life of the high society showed us the life of St. Petersburg of the time. Portraiture takes up a big part of his activities. In 1816, Orlowski, one of the first, tried lithography and published several series of lithographic works, which were appreciated by his contemporaries. After 1819 he worked as a graphic artist for the Topographic Department of the Army Headquarters. He travelled much throughout Russia and Persia and created many genre including battle pictures and local costumes, as well as portraits of his contemporaries. The painter was a member of a maison loge, forbidden by Alexander I, he was friends with the progressive Russian intellectuals: Ivan Krylov, Alexander Pushkin, Petr Vyasemsky, Denis Davydov, and others. His lithographs of Persia were published both as standalone lithographs as well as in book form in “Atlas ou Collection de 40 Dessins lithographiés par A. Orlowskj, Pour Servir Au Voyage en Perse, Fait pendant les années 1812 et 1813, par Gaspard Drouville, Colonel De Cavalerie au Service de S. M. L’Empereur De Toutes Les Russies Et Chavalier De Plusieurs Ordres. (St. Petersburg, 1820)” and “Collection de Costumes Persans Civils et Militaires, Dessinés d’après Nature par Alexandre Orlowski (St. Petersburg, 1822)”. Orlowski and Ker Porter are the only non-Iranian artists who have painted Fathali Shah from life.Click here to share: