Fishermen’s Boats in France

Author: Marszewski Jozef, 1827 - 1874

Created:  1869.

Material/technique: canvas/oil

Dimensions: 24x35.

Signature:  J. Marszewski 1869 (in the bottom-right corner of the painting).

JÓZEF MARSZEWSKI (1827–1874) was a Vilnius-born artist, who enjoyed wide acclaim for his superb landscapes. Unfortunately, as with most 19th-century Lithuanian artists, his legacy is scattered, and the research on him is meagre. For example, even the exact date and place of his death are not certain. Some sources give them as 1883 in Warsaw, others as 1874 in Vilnius. The latter date is corroborated by a gravestone discovered in the Evangelical Cemetery in Vilnius. It was transferred around 1960 to the Rasos cemetery. Having completed his studies in landscape painting at St Petersburg Academy of Art, Marszewski travelled around Europe, visiting France, Spain, Germany and Switzerland. He is known to have visited Paris a second time in 1869. He probably also went to Normandy, on the Atlantic coast in northern France, where he made a sketch in oils on a quiet summer’s day in 1869, capturing an ordinary moment, with small, curved boats pulled out of the water on to rough sand, and a fisherman patiently unravelling nets. In the distance, a steamer on the horizon leads the viewer’s eye deeper into the picture, where the sea merges with a vast sky, creating a sense of the unlimited within the tiny painting.

Reference: "RES PUBLICA" The art collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas. Compiler R. Jononienė. Vilnius, 2018, P. 202.

Published: Art album "The World of Landscapes" (Volume II). Compiled by N. Tumėnienė. Vilnius, LAWIN, 2013, Cat. No. 2, P. 249; "RES PUBLICA" The art collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas. Compiler R. Jononienė. Vilnius, 2018, P. 203,  Cat. No. 50, P. 222.