Octavian Smigelschi | |
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self-portrait
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Born |
Nagyludas, Szeben County, Austria-Hungary |
March 21, 1866
Died | November 10, 1912 Budapest, Austria-Hungary |
(aged 46)
Resting place | Blaj, Romania |
Nationality | Romanian |
Known for | Painting |
Notable work | Interior painting at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu |
Octavian Smigelschi (Hungarian: Smigelschi Oktáv; March 21, 1866 – November 10, 1912) was an Austro-Hungarian Romanian painter.
His father Mihail (Śmigielski) came from Poland. According to historian Nicolae Iorga, the family descended from chorąży (standard-bearers) to the Polish king. Another writer suggests a Ruthenian background; Mihail was Greek-Catholic, and the Austrian Partition of Poland was home to numerous Ruthenian Greek-Catholics. (However, he does allow for the possibility that the elder Smigelschi adopted the faith after arriving in Transylvania.) Octavian Smigelschi's own ethnic identity has been subject to some debate, with both Polish and Hungarian suggested, but he considered himself as Romanian. His father was a member of the szlachta noble class who fled Poland following the 1848 Revolution and arrived in the Principality of Transylvania in 1850. Initially settling in Bungard, he married Ana Sebastian, an Aromanian from Macedonia and also a Greek-Catholic. Later, he moved to Nagyludas in Szeben County, now Ludoș, Sibiu County, to work as a notary. There, he had four sons. One of them, Victor, obtained a Theology doctorate from the University of Vienna, teaching the subject and serving as a canon in Blaj. Another, Vasile, became an architect and was influenced by Romanian national ideas.