Artur Grottger, The Fate of a Certain Print Run: Three Letters [1926]

Title: The Fate of a Certain Print Edition. Three Letters.

Author: Artur Grottger (1837–1867) [painter and draftsman, creator of the famous series dedicated to the January Uprising]; published and edited by Stefan S. Komornicki (1887–1942) [art historian and museologist, curator of the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków].

Publisher: Kraków, published by Stefan S. Komornicki; printed by W. L. Anczyc and Company. “Dedicated by the Publisher to the Second Congress of Polish Bibliophiles in Warsaw.”

Year of publication: 1926.

Format: 22 cm.

Number of pages: 16, [3] pp.

Binding: Paperback cover.

A bibliophile commemorative print, prepared as a gift for the participants of the Second Congress of Polish Bibliophiles in Warsaw. It contains three letters by Artur Grottger concerning a lithographed portrait of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. The letters provide a behind-the-scenes look at this mid-19th-century publishing and artistic project: technical matters, print run, and distribution of the prints. Grottger, known as the painter of the January Uprising, became famous for his black-and-white series “Warsaw I,” “Warsaw II,” “Polonia,” “Lithuania,” and “War.” Alongside Jan Matejko, he was considered the most outstanding Polish artist of his generation. The print was produced at the renowned Anczyc printing house in Kraków in a numbered edition of 355 pieces. Nos. 1–150 were intended for Congress participants, Nos. 151–270 for members of the Kraków Book Lovers’ Society, nos. 271–305 for the publisher, and nos. 306–355 for sale at the “Bibljofil Polski” antiquarian bookstore on Kraków’s Main Market Square. The piece presented here is numbered 296 and comes from the batch reserved for the publisher.

Stefan Saturnin Komornicki was born on November 29, 1887, in Zawadka near Kałusz. He was an art historian and museologist, and from 1920 served as curator of the Czartoryski Princes’ Museum in Kraków, whose collections included materials related to the prince’s portrait. He was also an associate professor at Jagiellonian University and secretary of the Art History Commission of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Arrested on November 6, 1939, as part of Sonderaktion Krakau, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from which he returned in February 1940, severely emaciated. He died on April 17, 1942, in Kraków, murdered in his own apartment by robbers.

Provenance: no ownership records, bookplates, or stamps. A piece from the publisher’s stock (No. 296).

This is a numbered bibliophile edition from the publisher’s own stock, combining a memento of Grottger with the history of the Polish bibliophile movement. An item for collectors of bibliophile and Anczyce prints, scholars of Grottger’s work, and enthusiasts of memorabilia from the January Uprising.

The block is compact and stable; the original stitching is intact, and the pages are even. The textured paper is clean and bright, free of foxing, water stains, creases, and annotations. Original paper paperback cover, with identical text on the front and back covers, preserved in very good condition, with no losses, stains, or tears along the spine. Complete piece.

Catalog ID: 6547-22-A-X