Wojciech Stattler | |
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Born | April 20, 1800 Kraków, Poland |
Died | November 6, 1875 Warsaw, Poland |
(aged 75)
Wojciech Korneli Stattler (April 20, 1800 – November 6, 1875) was a Polish Romantic painter of Swiss aristocratic ancestry, and a long-standing professor of the School of Fine Arts in Kraków. His most famous pupil was Poland's nominal painter Jan Matejko.
Stattler was born in Kraków five years after the third of the military partitions of Poland by the three neighbouring Empires and the suppression of the Polish Kościuszko Uprising by the occupying forces. He was the son of a city councilor, deputy to the Sejm of Kraków, City which became part of the Austrian Empire. Stattler began his studies in 1816, initially in the field of mathematics and natural sciences. A year later, he enrolled at the drawing class of the School of Fine Arts and made quick progress in the workshops of professors Antoni Brodowski, Józef Peszka and Franciszek Lampi. In 1818–27 he went to Italy, and continued his art studies at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome under Andrea Pozzi and privately with Vincenzo Camuccini and Bertel Thorvaldsen; as well as at the Academy of Vienna since 1822 under Antonio Canova. During 1819–25 he was the recipient of state scholarships.
Upon his return from abroad, Stattler was appointed Professor of the School of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1831. Just before that, in 1829 he was in Łańcut at the estate of Count , portraying members and children of his family and receiving a salary. In 1830 he was in Puławy, where he made preparatory sketches for a portrait of Prince Adam Czartoryski. Back in Kraków, he embarked on a programme of dramatic changes at the School of Fine Arts, introducing live model studies as well as nude art models.