REMBRANDT'S "POLISH RIDER" IN ITS EAST EUROPEAN CONTEXT Author(s): THOMAS M. PRYMAK Source: The Polish Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (2011), pp. 159-186 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41550431 . Accessed: 07/02/2015 09:53

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This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Polish Review,Vol. LVI, No. 3, 201 1:159-186 ©201 1 The Polish Instituteof Artsand Sciences of America

THOMASM. PRYMAK

REMBRANDT'S "POLISH RIDER" IN ITS EAST EUROPEAN CONTEXT

RembrandtHarmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) is well known as the foremostartist of the Golden Age of Dutch paintingand one of themost talented of all European artists. A "realist" who eschewed classical perfectionand decorumto depictlife as it reallywas, completewith its flaws and its mundaneside, he was a masterof the psychologicalportrait with a clear capacity to infuselife, vitality,and movementinto his canvases, to expresspersonality, to raise contradictoryemotions, and even to shock.Yet there is always somethingsolemn and mysteriousabout his pictures, especiallyhis portraits,and the people portrayedare usuallythoughtful, and never withouta certaindepth. This immediacy,personalism, and depthis evidentin almost all of his acknowledgedpaintings, which numberfrom three hundredto six hundred(critics have exposed many imitatorsand reduced the number over the years), and many hundredsof drawings, sketches,and printswhich are prizedby collectorsand museumsall over the world.1

1 See especially,Kenneth Clark, An Introductionto Rembrandt(New York: Harperand Row, 1978). For a particularlywell-put brief characterization of Rembrandt,which devotes some attentionto the "Polish Rider" see Robert Hughes,"The God of Realism,"New YorkReview of Books, April6, 2006, pp. 6, 8, 10; also available underthe title"Connoisseur of the Ordinary,"The Guardian, February11, 2006, and available on-line:www. Guardian.co.uk/ artanddesign/2006/feb/l1/art/print. For authoritativesyntheses which are informedby recentscholarly debates, see Simon Schama,Rembrandt's Eyes (New York: AlfredA. Knopf,1999), and GarySchwartz, The RembrandtBook (New York:Abrams, 2006). Bothvolumes are well illustrated,though the latter is missinga reproductionof the "Polish Rider."Somewhat older, but witha respectablecommentary on the Rider is Michael Kitson,Rembrandt , 3rd ed. (Oxford:Phaidon, 1982), especiallysection 34. For a recentsynthesis in Polish, see M. Monkiewicz,"Rembrandt," in Sztukašwiata [Artof the World], vol. VII (Warsaw,1994), 137-59.At thispoint, I feelit appropriateto acknowledgethe influenceof mymaternal grandfather, Jan Miçdzybrocki, a Polishszlachcic and nativeof easternGalicia underthe Habsburgs,who inspiredin his Canadian childrenand grandchildrena certain affection for their Polish heritage, which, in part,eventually led me to thisstudy of the "Polish Rider."

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 160 ThePolish Review In easternEurope too Rembrandthas always been highlyvalued and fora long timethe HermitageMuseum in St Petersburgenjoyed one of the largestcollections of Rembrandtpaintings in the world.In the course of the twentiethcentury, however, parts of this collection were sold off or dispersedin otherways, while the Dutch, anxious to preservetheir artistic heritage,conscientiously reassembled as muchof it as theycould. Today the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdamholds the largest number of Rembrandt paintings and the RembrandtHouse Museum the largest number of Rembrandtprints.2 In Poland,patrons have been collectingRembrandts for many years. In additionto numerousprints and drawings,at presentthere are at least threeprized Rembrandtpaintings in Polish museums:"Landscape withthe Good Samaritan"(Czartoryski Museum in Krakow), and "Scholar at a Lectern"and "Girl in a Hat" (both in the Royal Castle Museum,Warsaw). The last two were originallyheld in the Royal Collectionof the last kingof Poland, Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1732-1798), who was an avid collectorand patronof the arts, somewhatlike his formerpatroness and ultimatenemesis, Catherine II of Russia. More importantlythough, Poland enteredRembrandt's oeuvre during his lifetimeas well. This is amply manifestedby two famous Rembrandtpaintings: "The Polish Nobleman" (1637, National Galleryin Washington,DC), which is believed by some to be a portraitof the Protestantdiplomat Andrzej Rej, and the "Polish Rider" in the FrickGallery in New York City,which for a long timewas believed to be a portraitof some unknownperson. It is themuch discussed second of these,exceptional in everyway, yet immediately recognizable as workof the master,which is thesubject of thepresent essay.3

2 For somerather full collections of Rembrandt's paintings which list the "Polish Rider,"see, forexample, Abraham Bredius, The Paintingsof Rembrandt, 2 vols. (Vienna and New York: PhaidonPress, 1937), esp. vol. I, no. 279, and KurtBauch, Rembrandt: Gemälde [Paintings] (Berlin: W. de Gruyter,1966), esp. no. 211. The latterlabels the picture: "Gijsbrecht van Amstel,"which is an allegoricalinterpretation discussed below. For some generalobservations, see H. Gerson,"Rembrandt in Poland,"The BurlingtonMagazine , XCVIII, 641 (August,1956), 280-3, and MichalWalicki, "Rembrandtw Polsce" [Rembrandtin Poland] Biuletynhistorii sztuki [Art HistoryBulletin], no. 3 (1956), 319-48,with a resuméin French,347-8. (This importantarticle is reprintedin Walicki's Obrazybliskie i dalekie[Paintings Near and Far] (Warsaw:Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1963), pp. 171- 97, but all referencesin the presentessay are to thejournal edition.) On the "Polish Nobleman,"see OtakarOdlozilik, "Rembrandt's Polish Nobleman," Polish Review, VIII:4 (1963) 3-33. At the timethat Gerson and Walickiwere writing,there were four generallyacknowledged Rembrandts in Poland: "Landscapewith the Good Samaritan"(1638), "Portraitof MartinDay" (1634), "Self-portrait"(about 1628),and "Portraitof Saskia" (1633). Some halfcentury later,only the firstof theseremained unquestionably recognized as a genuine

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Rembrandt's"Polish Rider" in itsEast EuropeanContext 161 The "Polish Rider" is a moderate-sizedpainting, about half life- sized (46 X 53/4in. [1 16.8 X 134.9cm]),an oil on canvas, depictinga young man,perhaps eighteen to twenty-fiveyears old, mountedon a slenderwhite horse which is trottingacross a dark and barely discernable landscape dominatedby brownsand deep orange.It appearsto be twilight,either early dawn or late dusk. The Rider's face is serious but calm and self-assured, brightand handsome,with regular square features.He is gazing offinto the distanceas if to discernhis futuredestiny. His hair is fairlylong and partly covered by a furcap with flaps on eitherside thatlook like theycan fold down to protecthim fromthe cold when necessary.The Rider is armedfor war witha saberon one side and whatlooks to be anothersaber or perhapsa shortsword on theother. He carriesa mace or war-hammerin his righthand and holds the horse's reinswith the other.A fullquiver of arrowshangs at his waist and the end of his bow protrudesbehind him. Both Rider and his mountare dressedin what is surely"oriental" costume, the Riderwearing a long coat extendingto his ankles and tied at his waist; he wears tightred breeches.The horsebears an ornamentalhorsetail banner which hangs from his bridleand is blown backwardby his movement.Beneath the high saddle to just above the shortstirrup is spread what looks to be a leopard-skin saddle-cloth. The horse and Rider clearly stand out fromthe dark background across whichthey are quicklymoving. Rising in the distancebehind them is a domed buildingwhich mightbe a fortress,church, or some otherantique buildingof some kind,and barelydiscernable to the rightis a streamand small campfire.The whole pictureunites exotic arms,costume, and scenery with the attractiveconfidence and innocence of a youth with whom we immediatelyidentify. But who is thisyoung man? Whatis he thinking?And to what battledoes he ride with such confidence?This mysteriouspicture has hauntedviewers, art critics,and historiansfor the full centurythat has passed since it lefteastern Europe and crossed the Atlanticto hang in the privategallery of HenryClay Frickin New York City.4

Rembrandt.Meanwhile, in the1990s, Karolina Lanckoroñska of Vienna donated "Girl in a Hat" (1641), formerlycalled "The JewishBride," and "Scholarat a Lectern"(1641), formerlycalled "Fatherof the JewishBride," to the Royal CastleMuseum in Warsaw.In 2006, Ernstvan de Wetering,a representativeof the notablyrigorous Amsterdam-based Rembrandt Research Project expressed the opinionthat both paintingswere true Rembrandts.See Dorota Jurecka, "Mamy prawdziwe Rembrandty"[We have genuine Rembrandts]Gazeta Wyborcza(Warsaw), February 14, 2006. For a more detailedhistory of the attributionof thesepaintings, see the websiteof the Royal Castle in Warsaw, page devoted to "Autorstwoobrazów:" www. zamek-krolewski.com.pl/ ?page=1434. "The Polish Rider,"The Frick Collection: An IllustratedCatalogue , vol. I: "Paintings,"(New York: Frick,1968), pp. 258-65, witha briefbibliography.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 162 ThePolish Review When in the 1890s it firstcame to the attentionof the westernart community,the paintingwas hangingin the privatecollection of Count Zdzislaw Tarnowski(1862-1937), and thisparticular work was housed in the ladies' drawingroom in his familyhome, Dzików Castle, in the Austrian Crown Land of Galicia in the Habsburg Monarchy. Dzików Castle, a venerableold buildingthen recently renovated in the neo-gothicstyle, was located in the westernpart of Galicia in what is today partof Tarnobrzeg Districtin Poland. (The easternpart of old Galicia is todayin Ukraine.)The Tarnowskifamily was at that time still a great landowningfamily with estates in both Poland and Ukraine and entire towns and cities like Tarnobrzegand Tarnów in today's Poland and Ternopilin today's Ukraine associatedwith its name. The pictureitself seems to have been held in great esteemby the Poles and was noted in printas early as 1842 (by the poet Kajetan Kožmian); thefollowing year, it was describedin some detailby the historian Maurycy Dzieduszycki, who printed a somewhat fanciful engravingof it in an importantGalician scholarlyjournal and notedthat in 1833 it had been sentto Vienna for"restoration" [do odchçdozenia'where, in Dzieduszycki's own words,the canvas "delightedthe experts who without any doubts recognizedin it Rembrandt'sbrushwork."5 The paintingwas studied in greaterdetail by various Polish scholars near the turnof the century,but forsome reason,probably because he did not believe it to be a familyportrait, and perhaps also for taxationpurposes, Count Tarnowski wishedto sell his paintingand had it again sentto Vienna forrestoration. In thisway, it came to the attentionof the prestigiousart historian and Berlin curator,Wilhelm Bode, a Rembrandtexpert, who on the basis of the use of color in the canvas dated it to "probably"1654, thatis to Rembrandt'slate period. "The picturedepicted," he wrote,"is a young Polish magnatewho casually trotspast the viewer in his nationalcostume on an Arabianwhite horse." In a footnote,Bode added that"it is worthmentioning that even when Polish and othergreat men fromhalf-civilized eastern Europe visited Holland, they showed a partialityfor having themselves painted by Rembrandt."This clearly chauvinistic comment by one of Europe's foremostart historians may be explainedin part,perhaps, by the factthat it

Thereis a serviceablecolor reproduction of the"Polish Rider," under an article of thesame namein theEnglish language Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this article is not linked to its Polish language counterpart,which displaysthe same photographand containssome additionalinformation and manylinks to related Polish subjects. The latteris titled: "Ježdziec Polski" [The Polish Rider] AccessedAugust 5, 2010. M[aurycy] D[zieduszycki], "Wizerunek Lisowczyka, obraz olejny Rembrandta"[Portrait of a Lisowczyk,an oil paintingby Rembrandt]Bibliotéka NaukowegoZakladu imienia Ossoliňskich[Ossolineum] vol. VII-IX (1843), 157-9.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Rembrandt's"Polish Rider" in itsEast EuropeanContext 163 was made in the wake of the so-called Kulturkampfwhen German-Polish relationswere quitetense.6 The firstwestern Rembrandt scholar to actuallystudy the original in any detail was, in fact,the Dutch scholar,Abraham Bredius, who seems to have been encouragedby Bode and was invitedto Dzików by the Polish art historian,Jerzy Mycielski, a cousin of the Tarnowskis.In 1897, the two scholarsvisited Dzików and Bredius shortlylater described his experiences in detail in the Dutch magazineDe nederlandischeSpectator (1897, no. 25, 197-99). Brediuswas veryimpressed and any doubtsthat he had had about thework instantly vanished. "Just one look at it,"he wrote,"a few seconds' studyof the technique,were enoughto convinceme instantlythat here, in this remotefastness, one of Rembrandt'sgreatest masterpieces had been hangingfor nigh on a century."Mycielski and Brediusarranged to have the painting exhibited in Amsterdam the following year and notices, reproductions,and reviews of the exhibitionwere widely printed.The pictureinstantly became a truesensation for the art world. At thattime, it was clearlynoted that the remnants of Rembrandt'ssignature "Rem...." still aDpeared at the bottomof the painting.Bredius himself,despite Bode's r ^search,always consideredthe "Polish Rider" as it now came to be called in westernEurope, as his greatestdiscovery.7 At thattime, there was onlyone dissentingvoice thatquestioned the painting.That voice belonged to Alfred von Wurzbach who in the first volume of his encyclopedia of Dutch paintingpublished in 1906 denied Rembrandt'sauthorship of thework and assignedit ratherto Aartde Gelder (1645-1727), one of Rembrandt'slast studentswho copied his laterstyle but, as von Wurzbach put it, could not compete with his use of color. Von Wurzbach called the picture"A Tatar Rider," and he noted thatAart de Gelderwas enamoredof orientalcostume. However, he gave no explanation whatsoeveras to why it shouldbe consideredthe work of de Gelderand not Rembrandt,and his opinionwas generallydisregarded.8

6 WilhelmBode, Studienzur Geschichteder holländischenMalerei [Studies in thehistory of Dutchpainting] (Brunswick: Friedrich Viewege, 1883), pp. 499- 500. 7 See AnthonyBailey, Responses to Rembrandt(New York:Tinken, 1994), who quotes Brediuson p. 118, n. 5. For moredetail on Bredius' researchtrip to Galicia,Poland, and Russia,on whichhe claimedto have discovereda number of "new"Rembrandts, see CatherineB. Scallen,Rembrandt: Reputation and the Practice of Connoisseurship (Amsterdam:University of AmsterdamPress, 2004), pp. 132-3. Alfred von Wurzbach, NiederländischesKünstler-Lexikon auf Grund archivalis cher Forschungen bearbeitet [Lexicon of Dutchartists, on thebasis of archivalresearch], 3 vols. (Vienna-Leipzig,1906-1911: repr. 1963), I, 573: "Dzikow.Graf Tarnowski. Ein tatarischerReiter..." [Dzikow. Count Tarnowski. A tatarhorseman].

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 164 ThePolish Review Meanwhile, Count Tarnowskihad still not given up his idea of sellingthe painting.Knowing thatthe sale abroad of such a greatnational treasurewould cause a negativereaction in Poland, the counttried to keep thematter secret. In 1910, he decidedto sell it throughthe CarfaxGallery in London and Knoedler and Co. in New York. The prospectivebuyer was Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), a steel, coke, and railway magnate,then knownas one of the mosthated men in Americafor his mercilessbusiness practices and ruthlessbreaking of labor strikes. During the infamous HomesteadStrike of 1892, which was prettymuch provokedby Frick,ten men were killed and some sixtywounded. Most of theseworkers were poor immigrants,crudely called "foreigners"at the time, many of them being Poles, Slovaks, and other Slavs from eastern Europe. Frick lived in Pittsburghand New York where in a speciallydesigned building he placed his exquisitecollection of old Europeanmasters. The purchaseof the"Polish Rider" was carried out throughthe mediationof Roger Fry, an English writer,painter, and art criticwho, at the insistenceof Tarnowski,went to Dzików to finalizearrangements. Fry was not impressedby Dzików Castle or its furnishings,which he considered"second rate"but was simplystunned by the paintingthat he had come to purchase.He latertold a colleague that suddenlya cord was pulled, a curtainwas rolledback, and therebefore his eyes "was revealedone of theworld's masterpiecesof painting."The agreed price forthe work was £60,000 or $293,162.50, an enormousamount for thattime. Meanwhile, news of the sale was leaked to the press and became common knowledge in Poland where the public was greatly aroused. Articles appeared in the press, and the Polish art historian,Zygmunt Batowski,claiming great art as the propertyof the entirenation rather than just the individualcollector and lamentingthe decline of appreciationfor such artin his country,noted his objectionsto the sale in the Polishjournal Lamus. The paintingwas exhibitedin London on itsway to New York and a copy was made forthe count.But in 1927 a firebroke out in Dzików Castle and part of the familyart collection,including the Rembrandtcopy, was destroyed.Had the "Polish Rider" remainedin Galicia after 1910, it is possiblethat it too would nothave survived.9

9 "The Polish Rider,"The Frick Collection, pp. 258-65; JuliusA. Chrošcicki, "Rembrandt's'Polish Rider': Allegoryor Portrait?"in Ars Auro Prior: Studia Ioanni BialostockiSexagenario dictata [Art preferable to gold: Studiesfor the sixtiethbirthday of Jan Bialostocki]ed. Alicja Dyczek-Gwizdzand others (Warsaw:PWN, 1981),pp. 441-8,passim, and ZygmuntBatowski, "Z powodu sprzedažyLisowczyka," [Concerning the sale of the Lisowczyk]Lamus , III, 6 (1910), 189-96. Also see Bailey, Responses to Rembrandt, pp. 4-5, who emphasizesFry's experience. On Frickas an industrialistand "robberbaron" as well as a collectorof art,see, forexample, Samuel A. Schreiner,Henry Clay Frick: The Gospel of Greed(New York: St Martin'spress, 1995). For a more positiveassessment, see MarthaFrick Symington Sanger, Henry Clay Frick: An

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 165 The assemblingof theFrick Collection and thearrival of the"Polish Rider" in New York roused a new wave of publicityabout the canvas. Articlesappeared in thepress and poems werewritten to commemorateit. In 1917, shortlybefore Frick's death,an articlewas publishedin a leadingart magazine describingthe Frick Collection and discussing the exotic and somewhatmysterious "Polish Rider."The authorwrote:

Who the youngman is, no one knows,but his red cap witha thick borderof fur,his long tunicof a pale yellow note securedby blue buttons,his close-fittingred breeches and yellow boots proclaim him a Pole or a Russian, a man of the Slavs to the eastwardwho furnishedlight cavalry to westernarmies, the forerunnersof the Hussars... [The art historian]Bode thinksthat he can specifythe regimentto which he belonged - Prince Lisowski's: at any rate that is the name this picture bore when in Count Tarnowski's collection...

The authorconcluded:

Rembrandtrarely painted horses and amongthe immense number of his etchingsthere is scarcelyone. Yet what a horse this is! ... It is not the somewhatbarbaric harness and garb of the horse rider,nor the sternlandscape well in keepingwith the light,that compels the attentionand urges conjecture... it is the human being, the expressionof the face whichis pondering,if not exactlydreamy - butthe look is decipherable.10

Similar sentimentswere expressedin poetry.As early as 1910, the Lotus Magazine reprintedF. WarreCornish's poem on "the Polish Rider"that had firstappeared in theBritish journal The Spectator.With a directreference to the siege of Vienna by the Turksand its reliefby Sobieski in 1683, and an

IntimatePortrait (New York: Abbeville, 1998), with some speculations concerningFrick's feelingsabout the Rider on pp. 72-4, and 452-4. The importanceof easternEuropean immigrants, especially Slavs, in theHomestead Strikeof 1892 is stressedin Paul Krause,The Battle for Homestead1880-1892 : Politics Cultureand Steel (Pittsburghand London: Universityof Pittsburgh Press,1992), pp. 221-6,315-28, who believes the efforts of these Slavic workers on behalfof organizedlabor have been seriouslyunderrated. On theTarnowski familyand its varied fortunesduring the twentiethcentury, see Andrew Tarnowski,The Last Mazurka:A Tale of War, Passion and Loss (London: Aurum,2006), whomentions the "Polish Rider" on p. 4. "The HenryClay FrickCollection," The Art World, vol. I, no. 6 (March, 1917),374-8.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 166 ThePolish Review indirectallusion to the later partitionof the countryby its voracious neighbors,he asked:

Does he rideto a bridal,a triumph,a dance,or a fray, Thathe goes so alert,yet so careless,so sternand so gay? Loose in thesaddle, short stirrup, one handon themane Of thelight-stepping pony he guideswith so easy a rein. Whata grace in his armorbarbaric! Sword, battle-axe, bow, Full sheafof arrows,the leopard-skin flaunting below. Heart-conqueror,surely - his own is notgiven a while, Till she comes who shall win forherself that inscrutable smile. Whatluck had his riding,I wonder,romantic and bold? For he ridesinto darkness; the story shall neverbe told: Did he chargeat Vienna,and fallin a splendidcampaign? Did he flyfrom the Cossack, and perish,ingloriously slain? Ah, chivalrousPoland, forgotten, dishonored, a slave To thyselfand thestranger, fair, hapless, beloved of thebrave!11

Afterthe death of Frick in 1919, in accordance with his will, his New York home became a museumwhich finallyopened its doors to the public in the 1930s, and the "Polish Rider" was free for all to see in the original.About a decade later,that is, in 1944, a Jewishrefugee from Nazi occupied Europe, JuliusS. Held, who could read a littlePolish, had done researchin Poland,and in 1933 had even visitedDzików Castle,penned the firstextensive study of thepicture in theEnglish language. Others followed. On the basis of the research of these scholars and theirPolish predecessors,the provenanceof the "Polish Rider" was tracedback to the end of theeighteenth century, a tumultuoustime when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,sometimes called "the Commonwealth of the Two Nations,"which had been one of the greatstates of easternEurope, was on its last legs. Amidstthe chaos thataccompanied the decline and fall of this multi-nationalCommonwealth, the last king,Stanislaw August Poniatowski, continuedhis greatrole as patronof learningand the arts.His collectionof old Europeanmasters was renowned,and he wished to expand it further.In August, 1791, he received the following letterfrom Michal Kazimierz Ogiñski(1728?- 1800), GrandHetmán of Lithuania,and a composer,writer, and poet of note:

11 "Mr Frick's Rembrandt,"The Lotus Magazine, vol. I, no. 3 (1910), 7-8. Anotherpoem in honorof the"Polish Rider" was publishedin Art in America (October,1920). The firststanza is quoted in full in Bailey, Responsesto Rembrandt, p. 119,n.7.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 167 Sire, I am sendingYour majestya Cossack whom Reinbrandhad set on his horse. [Odsylam Waszey KrólewskeyMosci kozaka którego Reinbrandosadzii na koniu...] This horsehas eaten duringhis stay withme 420 Germangulden. Your majesty'sjustice and generosity allows me to expect that orange trees will flower in the same proportion. Bowing to yourfeet, Your Majesty's, My Lord Master's mosthumble servant. Michal Ogiñski, G[rand]H[etman] of Lithuania].12

The scholarwho discoveredthis letter, Andrzej Ciechanowski, believed that since Ogiñski had spentmuch of the year precedingthis letterin western Europe, includingHolland, the Grand Hetmánhad purchasedthe painting, whichhe called "Cossack on Horseback,"for the king's collectionin return forwhich he wantedto obtainsome orangetrees for the palace thathe was thenbuilding at Helenów near Warsaw. (The kingpossessed an orangeryin the gardensof his Lazienki Palace in Warsaw). Ciechanowskithinks that, apartfrom the suggestedbarter agreement, the letteris "whimsical"and the referenceto the "Cossack on Horseback"fanciful. At any rate,the painting enteredthe collection where it was labeled in French Cosaque à 13 king's cheval. Nevertheless,it soon seemedto receivea new name,one somewhat morepleasing to Polish ears, since at thattime the most famous Cossacks in Europe were the Ukrainian Cossacks of the mid- and late-seventeenth century,formerly subjects of Lithuania,then Poland, who throughtheir great insurrectionof the 1640s and 1650s were in partresponsible for the decline and fall of the Commonwealthas a major Europeanpower. There is some evidence thatas early as 1797, the king referredto the paintingas being a portraitof a "Lisowczyk," that is, a soldier of the Lisowski company,a freebootingregiment of light cavalry oftenreferred to as "Cossacks" in Polish service,which was formedduring the Muscovitewars but also saw some action on the Catholic side during the ThirtyYears War. Poles, Ukrainians,and even some Tatarsformed the ranksof thiscompany; it was disbandedin the 1630s.14

12 In AndrewCiechanowski, "Notes on the Ownershipof Rembrandt's'Polish Rider',"The Art Bulletin , XLII, 4 (1960), 294-6. 13 Ibid., citingInventory of 1795. Also see Walicki,"Rembrandt w Polsce,"p. 329. See Chroscicki,p. 443, and p. 448, n. 9, citingT. Mañkowski,"Obrazy Rembrandtaw Galerii StanislawaAugusta" [Paintingsof Rembrandtin the Galleryof StanislawAugust] Prače Komisji HistoriiSztuki PAU [Proceedings of thePAU ArtHistory Section] V (1930), pp. 17-19,who refersto theking's

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 ThePolish Review By theend of the 1790s, theThird Partition of Poland had occurred, the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth disappeared from the map, and the king was dead. The Royal Art Collection, however, remaineduntil the king's niece and heiress,Countess Therèse Tyszkiewicz, ordered its sale and dispersal some ten years later. In 1810, while viewing the formerRoyal Collection,Countess Valérie Tarnowska,née Stroynowska,expressed a wish to buy thisso-called "Lisowczyk" since she saw in this"shining youth" not any lowly Cossack, but rathera noble condottierefrom the Lisowski Regiment,perhaps even herdistant relative, Colonel StanislawStroynowski who commandedthe regimentduring the ThirtyYears War. Therefore, arguedCiechanowski, it was probablyshe who talkedher uncle, the Bishop of Vilnius,Hieronim Stroynowski, into buying the supposedportrait of their ancestor for the ratherhigh price of five hundredducats. Stroynowski purchasedthe paintingnot directlyfrom the Royal Collection,but rather fromPrince FranciszekKsawery Lubecki (1779-1846), who had saved it from falling into the hands of the Russian plenipotentiary,Nikolai Novosiltsev (1761-1836), a determinedfoe of independentPoland, who wished to acquire as many Polish culturaltreasures as possible. Afterthe prematuredeath of thebishop, the painting, the now so-called "Lisowczyk," was inheritedby Valèrie's father,Senator Valerien Stroynowski,and went fromVilnius to his castle at Horokhiv(Horochów in Polish) in theProvince of Volhynia in Right-BankUkraine (then under Russian rule). Upon the senator's death in 1834, it went across the borderto Dzików in Austrian Galicia, the residenceof Valérie and her husband,Count Jan Stroynowska 15 AmorTarnowski, and thereit remaineduntil 1910. Althoughthe "Lisowczyk" was largely unknownto the western world and to westernRembrandt scholars before 1910, it was much better knowninside partitionedPoland itselfand gave rise to a certainamount of animateddiscussion. On the scholarlylevel, Dzieduszycki noted that the Lisowczykshad been across the Rhine twice,once in the early 1620s when Rembrandtwas still too young to have painted them,and again in 1636 when theyeven reached the Netherlandsand one of themmay have been sent to Amsterdamas an envoy where he attractedthe painter'sattention. Dzieduszyckispeculated that Rembrandt painted his "Lisowczyk"about this time, althoughhe thoughtit unlikelythat the paintingwas a portraitof letter.Chrošcicki, however, was unableto findthis letter in his examinationof thesurviving correspondence. On theLisowczyks, who werebasically brigands in Royal and then Imperialservice, See Henryk,Wisner, Lisowczycy [The Lisowczyks](Warsaw: Ksi^zka i Wiedza, 1976), who even put a full color reproductionof Rembrandt'spicture on thecover of his book.The firsthistorian of the Lisowczykswas actuallyMaurycy Dzieduszycki, who publisheda two volumestudy of the subjectin 1843, thatis, the same yearthat he wrotehis pioneeringarticle on Rembrandt'spicture. Ciechanowski,p. 296; Chrošcicki,p. 441.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 169 Stroynowskihimself.16 Dzieduszycki's speculationsinfluenced opinion in Poland for at least the next fortyyears, that is, until Bode, given his internationalprestige, expressed the revised opinion that the painting belongedto Rembrandt's"late" and not"middle" period. On the artisticlevel, two of the mostsuccessful nineteenth century Polish paintersof horsesand battlescenes, Juliusz Kossak (1824-1899) and JózefBrandt (1841-1915) seem to have come underthe powerfulspell of Rembrandt's famous canvas. Brandt, who was especially attractedto paintingCossacks and the Polish-Cossack and Polish-Tatarwars of the seventeenthcentury, that is, the time when Rembrandtwas flourishing, painted at least three significantpictures dealing with the Lisowski Regiment:"The March of the Lisowczyks"(1863), "Stroynowskipresenting ArchdukeLeopold Horses seized by theLisowczyks in theRhine Palatinate" (1869), and "Lisowczyk (Bunczuczny)" (1885), while Kossak, whose name actually means "Cossack" painted his own strikingthough inferior "Lisowczyk" (1860-65), in directimitation of Rembrandt'smore famous canvas. Other Polish artistsinspired by the "Lisowczyk" include Michal Ploñski, A. Orlowski,and L. Kapliñski. Moreover,around mid-centurya lithographof Rembrandt'spainting by Karol Auer was printedby the Piller lithographfirm in the Galician capital, Lemberg(Lwów in Polish). At the close of the century,the subjectalso receivedsome attention,including an engraved interpretationof the painting,in ZygmuntGloger's influential EncyklopediaStaropolska Illustrowana [IllustratedEncyclopedia of Old Poland]. "The portraitof the young 'Polish Rider'," concludes the art historian,Michal Walicki, "was the best-knownRembrandt picture in Poland."17

16 Dzieduszycki,"Wizerunek Lisowczyka," p. 158. For a briefsurvey of the variousPolish artistsinfluenced by Rembrandt's painting,see Walicki,"Rembrandt w Polsce,"p. 330. (Auer's lithographmay be thesame imageas thatprinted by Dzieduszyckiin 1843,though I have notbeen able to confirmthis by examinationof the Pillerversion.) Also see Zygmunt Gloger, "Lisowczyki," EncyklopediaStaropolska Illustrowana [Illustrated encyclopediaof old Poland]4 vols. (Warsaw,1972), III, 145-6.(This workwas firstpublished from 1900 to 1903.) On Brandtin particular,see forexample, AnnaBernat, Józef Brandt (1841-1915) (Warsaw: Edipresse, 2007), whichgives furtherreferences; on Kossak, see Kazimierz Olszañski, Juliusz Kossak (Wroclaw: Ossolineum,1988), esp. nos. 126, 127. 130, which in termsof biographyand images is the most detailedaccount, and Maciej Maslowski, JuliuszKossak (Warsaw: WAiF, 1986), esp. no. 71, whichcontains the best reproductionof Kossak's "Lisowczykon a WhiteHorse." Unlike Rembrandt's Rider,however, Kossak' s has a slightmustache but no fireor high"fortress" in thebackground. Also, his hat is morenatural than that of Rembrandt'sRider, lackingthe puzzling black arc ofthe latter, which appears to havebeen added by a laterhand, perhaps a "restorer,"though the Frick Gallery ("The PolishRider," The FrickCollection , p. 264, n. 4) maintainsthat technical examination shows

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 170 ThePolish Review The transferof thepainting across theAtlantic, as mentionedabove, was theoccasion of a certainamount of grumblingin Poland and celebration in the United States, where it was almost universallydeemed, not an unrecognizable"Lisowczyk," but rather a somewhatmore congenial "Polish Rider," romanticallylinked in many people's minds, as Cornish's poem clearlyshows, to thePolish strugglefor political independence. A generation later,however, this linkage,though still maintainedby some, was put into question by JuliusHeld in his pioneeringarticle in the most prestigious Americanart journal, The ArtBulletin .18 In his article on the Rider, which adhered quite closely to the professionalstandards of arthistory as developed in recenttimes in western Europe, Held accepted the authenticityof the paintingas the work of Rembrandtbut put the word "Polish" in the title in quotationmarks thus giving the impression that the painting's Polish connection was questionable.He pointedout thatthe Lisowski Regimentwas disbandedby the 1630s and thusRembrandt could not have paintedone of its membersas a youthfulrider in the mid-1650s when all previous Rembrandtexperts beginningwith Bode believed thathe completedthe masterpiece.Indeed, it was doubtfulwhether Rembrandt had any idea who the Lisowczyks even were. Held also agreed that the Rider could not have been a Ukrainian Cossack since they customarilywore bright-coloredclothing and not the apparentlydrab outfitworn by the Rider.As a clincherto thisargument, he maintainedthat the Cossacks commonlywore loose baggy pants (called that"the peculiar shape results from the dark fur trimming of thetwo upturned flaps mergingwith some dark hair on the Rider's forehead."Somewhat strangely,the article on "Rembrandt"in themost extensive partition-era Polish encyclopediadoes not even mentionthe "Lisowczyk." See "Rembrandt," Encyklopedia Powszechna S. Orgelbranda [S. Orgelbrand's universal encyclopedia]vol. XII (Warsaw, 1902), 563. This was also trueof the most detailedRussian-language encyclopedia of thattime which was widelyread in Poland: A.A. Somov, "Rembrandtvan Rein," Entsiklopedicheskiislovar [Encyclopedicdictionary] vol. XXVI (St Petersburg:Brokgauz i Efron,1899), 552-4. 18 Unless otherwisenoted, I have used the extensivelyrevised edition of this articlewhich containsan important"Postscript." See JuliusS. Held, "The 'Polish' Rider," in his RembrandtStudies (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 59-97, and 194-199.For reasonsof comparison,I have also consultedthe original: "Rembrandt's 'Polish' Rider,"The Art Bulletin , XXVI, 4 (1944), 246-65. Held's ideas are not fully accepted by A. J. Barnouw, "Rembrandt'sTribute to Polish Valor," The Polish Review[nb. a publication notassociated with the present quarterly, -ed.], V, 18 (1945): 8-9, 16, who saw the painter'sattention to Poland as a visionaryand prophetic"token of gratitude"for Polish help in the liberationof Hollandfrom the Nazis in 1945. Barnouw's highlycharged enthusiasm for the theme, however, has moreto do withthe exhilaration of the victory of 1945 thanwith real art history.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 171 sharavaryin the Ukrainianlanguage) and not tightbreeches like the Rider. Held as well maintainedthat previous Polish scholars,who suggestedthat thehandsome sitter for this painting may have been Rembrandt'sson, Titus, were wrong,since Titus was fartoo youngto be mountedon a horse in the earlyor mid 1650s whenthe Rider was supposedto have been painted.Held examinedthe Rider's costume,weapons, and horseand concludedthat these were not specifically Polish, but rathergeneral accoutrementsof east European soldiers,including Hungarian ones. Thus the Rider's cap, coat, and weapons, and the horse's decorativehorsetail standard, which Held called by a Hungarianname kutas, and otherequipment as well, were all genericitems and not specificallyPolish. Indeed, accordingto Held, even theRider's personalgrooming was un-Polishsince his hairwas long and his mustacheshaved, unlike most martial Poles of the timewho wore theirhair shortand were quite proud of theirbushy mustaches.Held pointedto the medieval statueof a riderin BambergCathedral in Germany,Rembrandt's own sketch of the skeleton of a Dutch horse, and most importantly, followingthe Polish scholar,Jan Boloz-Antoniewicz, reminded his readers of the sketchesof Polish cavalryvisiting Rome by the Italianartist, Stefano della Bella, and he indicatedthat these were all possible models for the "Polish Rider" and his horse; he concluded that the picture was not necessarily a portraitbut rather a generalized allegory of the Miles Christianus, the good Christianknight, riding off to defendChristendom from the Turks and Tatars who were then threateningit. Held never questioned Rembrandt'sauthorship of the work but only its traditional connectionwith Poland. Had the Rider been discovered in a Hungarian castle insteadof a Polish one, he concluded,it would today universallybe knownas the"Hungarian Rider."19 Held's influentialessay opened up a new trendin scholarshipabout the "Polish Rider." This trenddenied that the picture was a portraitof a real personand claimed it was primarilyor solely an allegoricalrepresentation of 19 Held (1991), pp. 59-97. On Stefanodella Bella, to whose sketchesof Polish cavalryRembrandt's Rider bears a strikingresemblance, see PhyllisD. Masser, "PresentingStefano della Bella," MetropolitanMuseum of Art Bulletin, new series,XXVII, 3 (1968), 159-76.Boloz-Antoniewicz' s comparison of the two datedfrom about 1905. See Held (1991 ed.), p. 81, n. 95. Held wenton to say,p. 82, thatthe Rider's background,"this landscape, with its powerfulfortress on top of a steepand massivemountain" is, however,"an elementquite foreign to Stefano's etchingswith their wide plains and low horizon."To an eastEuropean eye,however, this building with its broad, almost flat dome, reminds one rather of theOrthodox churches of theeastern Mediterranean. Take away theminarets added by theTurks, and thedome looks verymuch like thatof theChurch of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.Walicki, "Rembrandt w Polsce,"pp. 343-6,compares it to theruins of theTemple of Minervain Rome whichappeared on a printof the latersixteenth century and on Rembrandt'sown "David takingLeave of Jonathan"(1642) in theHermitage.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 172 ThePolish Review some moreethereal or literaryhero. For example,Jacob Rosenbergclosely followedHeld's interpretation,including his Miles Christianustheory, in his highlyinfluential book titledRembrandt: Life and Work, which was first published in 1948.20Meanwhile, this same year, the veteranRembrandt scholar,W.R. Valentiner,identified the Rideras Gijsbrechtvan Amstel,the traditionalDutch heroof a famousplay by the same name by theprominent poet,Joost van den Vondel,which Rembrandt surely knew; J.Z. Kannegieter thoughthe was Sigismundusvan Poolen froma play performedin 1647 and available in printin 1654, thatis, veryclose to whenRembrandt is supposed to have painted his picture;Colin Cambell thoughtthat Rembrandthad paintedthe ProdigalSon ridingout intothe worldafter having received his "portion"(Luke 15:11-13); Leonard Slatkes in a book on Rembrandtand Persia saw a biblical "youngDavid" in the Rider; ReinerHausherr thought of himas a kindof JewishMessiah figure,painted especially for the Jews; a Canadian scholar,D.W. Deyell, in 1980 declared that the Rider was St Reinold of Pantaleon,one of the few popular seventeenthcentury literary figureswho "as a soldierand a saintgives acceptablemeaning to the Frick CollectionRider;" and finallyin 1985, the distinguishedRembrandt expert, Gary Schwartz,declared the Rider to be none other than an equestrian soldierfrom the play Tamerlaneby JoannesSerwouters first performed in Amsterdamin 1657. Of course, all of these allegorical interpretationsare pure speculationand none of themcontradict the factthat a real person in real costumeprobably served as a model forthe painting. Moreover, some of themare far-fetchedindeed since, forexample, as Held pointedout in his "Postscript"of 1991, Gijsbrechtvan Amstelwas alreadyan old man when he supposedlyfled to Poland while Rembrandt'sRider is veryyoung; the ProdigalSon is usuallydepicted with a purseto carryhis inheritance,while theRider has none; thereis no iconic precedentfor a "David" on horseback; and finally,Rembrandt's Rider looks rathernonchalant for a Tamerlaneor one of his men in pursuitof the Ottoman Sultan Bayazet, as Schwartz claimed.21

20 This interpretationremained unchanged in latereditions of thework. See, for example,Jacob Rosenberg, Rembrandt: Life and Work, revised ed. (Ithaca,New York: Cornell UniversityPress, 1986), pp. 251-4. Clark, Introductionto Rembrandt, pp. 57-9, also followsHeld quite closely,though he sees an anti- classical"rebel" element in theRider's almost emaciated horse and "an almost femininebeauty" in the Riderhimself. He calls the canvas a "magicalwork typicalof Rembrandt" and "one ofthe great poems of painting." See Held, esp. the "Postscript,"pp. 194-99,which outlines most of these theoriesand raisesobjections to them.For the mostwidely influential among them,see W.R. Valentiner,"Rembrandt's Conception of HistoricalPortraiture," ArtQuarterly , XI (Detroit,1948), 116-35;Colin Cambell,"Rembrandt's 'Polish Rider'and the Prodigal Son," Journal of theWarburg and CourtauldInstitutes , XXXIII (1970), 293-303,and revisedas "The Identityof Rembrandt's'Polish

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 173 Only one Polish scholarcame up withan allegoricaltheory like the ones listedabove. That was JanBialostocki who had discovereda pamphlet by a Polish Socinian groupin Holland pleadingfor religious tolerance. The author signed himselfonly Eques Polonus [A Polish Knight],but was otherwiseknown as Jonasz Szlichting,a man of about sixtyyears at the time. Bialostocki proposed thatthe Polish Rider was none otherthan this Polish knight,though a "spiritual"rather than a real one since Szlichtingwas too old to be the persondepicted by Rembrandt.But the Socinians were a radical Protestantsect committedto unitarianismand pacifism and how Rembrandt'swell-armed Rider could reflecttheir ideals is, as Held 22 correctly pointedout, open to seriousquestion. In fact,the whole questionof a proposedallegorical origin for the "Polish Rider" disturbedsome scholars. In particular,Zdzislaw Žygulski (Junior)refused to abandonthe idea thatthe picture was, in fact,a portraitof a real personinto which allegoricalmeaning could laterbe read, if desired. Furthermore,Žygulski rejected Held's idea of a generalized Miles Christianusand questionedthe Rider's supposedHungarian connections, as postulatedby Held. In a detailedand well documentedstudy published in the mid-1960s,Žygulski pointed out thatRembrandt produced two distincttypes of paintingsof people in costume: 1) Artificialcompositions of models dressed up for the occasion in clothingand accoutermentsfrom his own large collection,and 2) Real portraitswhich were remarkablyaccurate and loyal to the subjects portrayed.Žygulski thought that the "Polish Rider" whichhe stillcalled the"Lisowczyk" belonged to thelatter category. Žygulskibegan by admittingthat the Rider could not be an actual Lisowczyk since theyhad alreadydisappeared in the 1630s (Polish scholars had already agreed upon this long before Held's article appeared); nevertheless,he thoughtthat the Rider was an actualportrait of a Polish light cavalrymanof some type.These cavalrymenwere loosely called "Cossacks" in Polish parlanceof the seventeenthcentury and were made up of warriors from many nations: Poles, Ukrainians,Walachians, Tatars and others. Žygulskistressed the "Cossack" label and the factthat "here servedalso the

Rider'," in Neue Beiträgezur Rembrandt-For s chung [New contributionsto Rembrandtstudies] ed. Otto von Simon and JanKelch (Berlin:Gebr. Mann, 1973), pp. 126-37; Leonard J. Slatkes,Rembrandt and Persia (New York: Abaris, 1983), pp. 60-92; and Gary Schwartz,Rembrandt : His Life His Paintings(London: Viking, 1985), pp. 273, 277-8. The St Reinoldof Pantaleon theorywas proposedin a dissertationby Daniel Wayne Deyell, "The Frick CollectionRider by Rembrandtvan Rijn,"Unpublished MA Thesis,University ofBritish Columbia, 1980, to whichHeld did notrespond. Jantíiaiostocki, Rembrandt s tques г оtonus, Uua Holland [Uld Holland], LXXXIV (1969), 163-76.This "Sociniantheory" is in partaccepted by Pierre Descargues,Rembrandt : Biographie (Paris: Jean-Claude Lattès, 1990), pp. 205- 6. ForHeld's objections,see his "Postscript,"pp. 195-6.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 174 ThePolish Review people fromthe Ukrainefor whom war constitutedthe properelement, the source of supportand fulfillment."He noted that the Rider's steed was specificallyPolish, light,and not of the heavier west European or even Hungarianvariety, that it was riddenin a specificallyPolish style,upright but leaning slightlyforward, and bent at the knee; he added that Poles visitingthe West oftenimitated west Europeansand wore theirhair long and shaved theirmustaches, like the Rider; thathe sporteda furcap called a "kuchma" (kuczma in Polish orthography)which was most common in Poland and Ukraine, less so in Hungary,that his coat was a "joupane" {župan in Polish orthography)knit most probablyof closely woven silk, a kindof softarmor specific to Poland and its easternneighbors, and thathis arms and especially his bow were unique to Poland. (It was of a type, Žygulskimaintained, made only by Armenianartisans in the city of Lviv (Lwów in Polish) which today is located in westernUkraine. Finally,he concludedthat the saddle, harness,and brass stirrupswere all of the Polish and Cossack style. Moreover, the horse-tail standard was a typical "bunchuk" (buñczuk in Polish orthography)widely used in the Polish- LithuanianCommonwealth, and adoptedunder Turkish influence; these also were supposedlymore popularin Poland thanin Hungary.Thus, all in all, Rembrandt'sRider was an exact replica of a "Polish light cavalryman," which the artist could never have made up or created from his own collectionof artifactswithout a real model. In his finalparagraphs, Žygulski hintedthat the artisthad a "well-known"interest in Polish mattersthrough his familyconnections, and thatthis may have spurredthe creationof the Rider. Thus the "Lisowczyk" was a real person and no generic Miles Christianusand mostcertainly not Hungarian. All allegoricalinterpretations of thepicture, he concluded,must be relegatedto secondaryplace.2 Žygulski's research was generallywell received by westernart historiansunfamiliar with the Polish language,who quietlyyielded to his authorityin mattersof Polish arms and costume.Among Polish scholars, however,at least one historianbelieved that his conclusionswere somewhat too categorical.The Polish émigré scholar living in London, Mieczyslaw Paszkiewicz, acknowledgedŽygulski' s detailed knowledgeof Polish arms and costumebut disagreedwith him on his claim about the uniquenessof Rembrandt's"Polish Rider." He maintainedthat Žygulski's "either/or" approachto Rembrandt'spictures of people in costumewas too rigid,and he pointedout thatRembrandt sometimes copied and developed otherartists' work, and that artifactsin the picturelike the Rider's war-hammerand

23 Zdzislaw Žygulski,"Rembrandt's 'Lisowczyk': A Studyof Costumeand Weapons,"Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie[Bulletin of the National Museumof Warsaw],VI, 2/3(1965), 43-67. Rembrandt's"Lisowczyk" is also treatedas a realexample of Polishmilitary history in BronislawGembarzewski, Polska jej dzieje i kultura[Poland, its historyand culture],3 vols. (Warsaw, n.d.,but published in the1930s), II, 53-4,a highlyrespected work.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 175 "kuchma" or furhat also occurredin some of his othercreations which otherwisehad nothingto do with Poland; at the same time depictionsof Poles in long hair,even in the west,were veryrare, thus indicatinga non- Polish model. Paszkiewicz suggestedthat the picturewas based upon the drawingsof Stefano della Bella and a Polish embassy passing through Holland in 1645 (that of Opaliñski and Leszczyñski) which Rembrandt, given his lively interestin thingsexotic, might have personallywitnessed. (Some of della Bella's drawingswere actuallyof thissame embassy,which was on its way to Paris). Thus Rembrandt'spainting was probablynot a commissionedportrait of a particularPole, but rathera kind of composite genrescene, veryPolish, but nonethelessnot an exact likenessof a "Polish light cavalryman,"much less a "Lisowczyk" of the 1630s. Paszkiewicz concluded that the paintingwould be bettertitled "A Rider in Polish Costume" ratherthan a "Polish Rider," a more pedantictitle, perhaps, but certainly,in his opinion,a moreaccurate one.24 Needless to say, Paszkiewicz's arguments did not convince Žygulskiin the least. He immediatelyresponded to the Polish scholar in London, reasoning,for example, thatthe war-hammer{nadziak in Polish) was a weapon specificto lieutenantsof the Polish lightcavalry, just as the mace or "bulava" (a termcommon to several languages in easternEurope) was specificto the supremecommander or "Hetmán,"and thatwhile certain elementsfrom the picture might be foundelsewhere in Rembrandt'soeuvre, or in images that Rembrandtmay have seen, such as certain Persian miniatures,it was the detailedcombination that was unique to the Riderand markedhim as definitelyPolish. Moreover,the Polish embassy to Paris, which had passed throughHolland, occurredsome ten years priorto the artist'swork on the Rider, which was a ratherlong time for the artistto remembersuch details. Thus the probabilityremained that the work was a portraitof a real personrather than a copy of anotherartist's work or some kind of genrecomposition. Moreover, Žygulski concluded, Polish costume and armamentchanged very little between the 1620s and the 1660s and thus the nineteenthcentury Polish name,"Lisowczyk," was not so far-fetchedas mightseem at firstglance.25 The next step in the historyof Rider scholarshipcame when MykhailoBryk-Deviatnytsky, a Ukrainian living in Holland, took the time to examine the Dutch archives for furtherinformation on Poles living in Holland in the 1650s. Bryk-Deviatnytskywas intriguedby Rembrandt's familyconnection with Poland and thoughtthat this might have put him in

24 MieczyslawPaszkiewicz, ""Jezdziec polski' Rembrandta,"Biuletyn historii sztuki, XXXI, 2 (1969), 216-26. 25 Zdzislaw Žygulski,"Odpowiedž w kwestii'Lisowczyka'" [An answerto the "Lisowczyk"question] ibid ., 227-8. Also see idem, Polska: Broñ wodzów i žolnierzy [Poland: the weapons of its leaders and soldiers] (Kraków: Kluszczyñski,2003?), pp. 54-5.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 176 ThePolish Review contactwith Ukrainiansfrom the Commonwealth,specifically Cossacks, who might have served as a model for the Rider. Among Bryk- Deviatnytsky's compatriots it was even said thatRembrandt's Rider might even have been a representationof HetmánBohdan Khmelnytsky(d. 1657), who was leadingthe greatCossack insurrectionagainst Poland at the exact time that the work was being painted (1648-57), or even a young Ivan Mazepa (d. 1709), laterHetmán of Cossack Ukraine,who betweenthe ages of seventeento twentywhile he was stillsupposedly a courtierto the Polish King, was sent to Holland to studyartillery (1656-59). Bryk-Deviatnytsky had the idea of examiningthe archivesof the FrisianAcademy at Frankener whereJan Makowski, the Polish husbandof Rembrandt'ssister-in-law was thenteaching theology and philosophy.The curiousDutch Ukrainian scholar did in factfind some Ukrainiansenrolled at Frankener,but also discovered that some membersof the powerfulOgiñski family of Lithuania were similarlyenrolled at the academy. Bryk-Deviatnytskyhypothesized that Makowski,who was always shortof money,got Rembrandtto paintone of these Ogiñskis- eitherone of two brothers,Bohdan (Theodorusin Latin) or Aleksander- in his nationalcostume and mountedon his horse. Thus the factthat the painting turned up some 150 yearslater in the handsof this same familywas no coincidence.The Ukrainianresearcher also pointedout thatthe Ogiñskiswere actuallyan old Ruthenianfamily ("Ruthenian" being the old genericname forUkrainians and Belarusansin the Commonwealth) and in the 1650s stillloyal to Orthodoxyand subjectsof theGrand Duchy of Lithuania,and not the Polish Crown,and thus,in east Europeanterms, they could hardly be considered "Polish." Bryk-Deviatnytskyconcluded by suggestingthat the old label should be restoredto the paintingand thatit should once again be properlycalled "Rembrandt'sCossack," or by some othersuch title.26 At any rate,it was not long beforeBryk-Deviatnytsky' s research came to theattention of a numberof Rembrandtspecialists and one of them, B.P.J. Broos, soon followedhis lead in investigatingRembrandt's personal connectionswith Poland and with the Ogiñski familyin particular.Broos also thoughtZygulski's work very importantand underestimatedin the literature,and he cited work in both Dutch and Ukrainian by Bryk- Deviatnytsky.He identifiedseveral of Rembrandt's overlooked Polish connectionsand notedthe existenceof a stonerelief of a Poolse Cavalyier datingfrom Rembrandt's time on an Amsterdamstreet but labeled Poolsche Kozakby a scholarof thenineteenth century. This carving,which still exists,

26 MykhailoBryk-Deviatnytsky, "Pro Rembrandta i ioho 'PolskohoVershnyka'" [On Rembrandtand his "Polish Rider"] Vilneslovo (Toronto),May 6, 1972. Throughthe good graces of archivistJames Kominowski,I obtainedan electroniccopy of thisrather rare newspaper article from the Oleksander Baran Collection, vol. "Kozáky" [Cossacks] Universityof Manitoba Archives, Winnipeg,Manitoba.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 177 Broos wrote,appeared to be "an interpretationof the 'Polish Rider' by a simplemason." Broos also stressedRembrandt's close relationshipwith the artdealer, Henrick van Uylenburgh,in whose workshophe paintedfor four yearsand who was instrumentalat gettinghim commissionsand promoting his career. Rembrandtmarried Uylenburgh's niece, Saskia, in 1634 and Rembrandtsubsequently bought the house nextdoor to Uylenburgh'sstudio in Breestraat.It also happenedthat Uylenburgh had spenthis childhoodand youthwith his parentsand siblingsin Krakow,and by 1620 was actingas an agentof the Polish kingand buyingart for his collection.Thus Uylenburgh, an artdealer of internationalimportance, may have arrangedthe sitter for the "Polish Rider." At any rate,Rembrandt married into Uylenburgh'sfamily and thusbecame relatedto the theologianJan Makowski (called Maccovius in Latin) and throughhim, as Bryk-Deviatnytskyfirst suggested, probably came into contact with various students from the multi-national Commonwealth,in particular,some of the Ogiñskis, of whom Broos identifiedat least five: the two, Bohdan and Aleksanderidentified by the Ukrainianscholar, and also threemore, Marcjan, Jan, and SzymonKarol, all of whom studied at Leyden Universitywhere they were registeredas "Poles." Broos seems to have been inclinedto thinkthat the best candidate for a Rembrandtsitter was Szymon Karol who had settled in Holland, marrieda Dutch woman,and fatheredthree children there, but all he could firmlyconclude was thatat least one of these Ogiñskis was probablythe model forthe Rider.27 The careful scholarship of Broos, which publicized the Bryk- Deviatnytskythesis that had been originallypublished in one or more little- knownUkrainian émigré newspapers, made an immediateimpact upon the tightcircle of establishedRembrandt scholars. It was noted by Held in a postscriptto the Germanversion of his articlewhich appeared in 1981 and attractedattention in Poland as well. Held seemed to awaken to the possibilitythat the Rider could, in fact,be a portraitof a real personrather thanjust an allegory,but he dismissedSzymon Karol as thisperson since he was thirty-fouryears old in 1655 when the picturewas supposed to have been paintedand thus was too old to be the model. Instead,he proposed Marcjan AleksanderOgiñski who was stillvery young (eighteen or nineteen in 1650) and thus the most suitable candidate.28Meanwhile, in Poland,

27 B.P.J. Broos, "Rembrandt'sPortrait of a Pole on his Horse," Simiolus: NetherlandsQuarterly for theHistory of Art, VII, 4 (1974), 192-218.See, in particular,p. 214, where he cites an article in Dutch by Mychalj Bryk- Dewjatnyckyj[Mykhailo Bryk-Deviatnytsky], "Morozenko in Frankener,"Ut de smidte, 1, part4 (1969), 10-14,and refersto his workin Ukrainian.Held, p. 198, interpretedBroos to have alreadyfirmly decided the matter in favorof Szymon Karol. 28 Held, "Nachwortzum 'Polnischen'Reiter" [Epilogue to the "Polish" Rider] (1981), as quotedin Held, p. 198, n. 13. Broos,p. 215, quotesthe registerof

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 178 ThePolish Review JuliuszChrošcicki who thoughtBroos's articlesimply "brilliant," came to the same conclusionand began doing researchon Marcjan. He eventually discoveredthat Marcjan AleksanderOgiñski was portrayedin a pictureby FerdinandBol, one of Rembrandt'sstudents, and thatRembrandt's Rider bore a strikingresemblance to him. "Ogiñski's face," he wrote,"is easily recognizable in the 'Polish Rider.'" As a clincher to this argument, Chrošcickipointed to the firefaintly observable in the backgroundof the paintingand noted thatthe name "Ogiñski" in Polish means "of the fire," ogieñ being the root word. What Chrošcickifailed to notice,however, but whatwould have mostcertainly added more forceto his argument,was the factthat Rembrandt's Rider was mountedon a whitehorse moving across a dark background,and both the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the modernpost-Soviet republic display such a rideron theirtraditional coat-of- arms.This rider,today called Vytis"the chaser" in the Lithuanianlanguage, is armedwith a raised swordand mountedon a whitesteed set upon a field of red.He also appearedtogether with the Polish WhiteEagle on thearms of the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth where he representedthe Grand Duchy. Thus Ogiñski's presence in Holland in 1650, his age, nationality, status,personal appearance, and the "of the fire"argument, as well as the "white steed" hypothesis,all seemed to confirmthe true identityof Rembrandt'sRider, which, of course,turned up some 150 years laterin the possessionof thissame Ogiñskifamily.29 Marcjan AleksanderOgiñski (1632-1690), in fact,was a perfect candidateto be Rembrandt'sRider. Born into one of the greatlandowning familiesof Lithuania,his fatherwas the last senatorof the Orthodoxfaith in the Sejm or parliamentof the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth. Although the familywas of venerableRuthenian ancestry with lands in the Smolensk region and a lineage that stretchedback to Kievan Rus', it gained prominencein the sixteenthcentury when the Lithuanian Grand Duke Aleksandergave it the estateof Ogintai.It was, in fact,this estate, and not

LeydenUniversity for July 14, 1650: "Martianus[Marcyan] Oginski Polonus, 19,Politices]." 29 See Chrošcicki,pp. 445-7, with a photographof Bol's picture.Also, Rembrandt'sRider wears a very light colored "}oupanG"(zhupan)or coat, indeed,almost white, and the Vytison the Lithuaniancoat-of-arms is also generallywhite, as is also forthat matter the mountedfigure of St George slayingthe dragon, who appearson theOgiñski family coat-of-arms. Aleksander Brückner,Siownik etymologiczny jçzyka polskiego [Etymological dictionary of thePolish language] (Kraków: M. Arct,1927), in his briefarticle on thežupan , p. 668, informsus thatthere were two kindsworn by the Polish gentry:a summertimežupan , whichwas made of linenand was white,and a wintertime župan, whichwas made of wool and was grey,or at least somewhatdarker in color. For some generalinformation on Lithuanianheraldry, see Edmundas Rimša,Heraldry: Past to Present, tr. Vijolè Arbas (Vilnius: Versus aureus, 2005), esp. pp. 58-71,with several antique illustrations of the Vytis.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 179 thePolish wordfor "fire" that actually had giventhe family its name, though by theseventeenth century few people mayhave rememberedthis.30 Marcjan himselfwas borninto and raised in the Orthodoxfaith and studiedin Vilnius and Kraków beforegoing to Holland; he was enrolledin the Universityof Leyden in 1650 but shortlythereafter returned to the Commonwealthand enteredmilitary service; by 1654 he was named a "standardbearer" 'chorqžny' and by 1656 foughtin the ranks of Prince Sapieha's Lithuanianarmy; he took partin the 1663/4Muscovite expedition and became deeplyinvolved in Commonwealthpolitics. In 1663, he married Marcebella Anna Hlebovich and throughthis marriagebecame one of the wealthiestof all Lithuanianmagnates. In 1668, he foundedthe Orthodox Churchin Šmilowiczybut shortlyafterwards converted to Catholicismand foundeda CatholicChurch at Rogov and a JesuitCollege in Minsk. In 1684, he became GrandChancellor of Lithuania.He died in 1690.31 The discoveryof Bol's portraitof Ogiñskiand the identificationof the "Polish Rider"with Marcjan was convincingfor many hitherto skeptical Rembrandt scholars. Held himself largely accepted the evidence accumulated by Žygulski, Bryk-Deviatnytsky,Broos, and especially Chrošcicki, and retreatedsomewhat from his allegorical interpretation, which he claimed was not all thatrigid, and wrote: "While I believe that Rembrandt'smartially handsome rider derives some of his appeal fromthe old concept of the Miles Christianus, I never claimed that Rembrandt intendedhim to personifysuch an allegoricalcharacter, and always admitted the possibilitythat 'he may have called him by a definitename.'"32 The Dutch-Americancultural historian, Simon Schama also accepted the new

30 "Ogiñski(Lith. Oginskis)," Encyclopedia Lithuanica , 6 vols. (Boston,197 0- 78), IV, 109. Also, at thispoint it shouldbe notedthat since the family was of old "Ruthenian"or East Slavic origin(even sponsoringpublications in the Ruthenianand ChurchSlavonic languages), the mooted "of thefire" derivation would have meantthat the name derivedfrom an East Slavic and not Polish wordfor "fire" (cf. themodern Belarusan vahon '), thoughadmittedly these two cognatewords sound verysimilar to an outsideear. Furtheron the Ogiñski family,Ahinski in modernBelarusan, see the Polska encyklopediaszlachecka [Encyclopediaof thePolish nobility], vol. IX (Warsaw,1937), 135-6,with brief vital statisticson prominentmembers of the family,including Marcjan Aleksander. 31 Andrzej Rachuba, "Ogiñski, Marcjan Aleksander," Polski slownik biograficzny[Polish biographical dictionary], vol. XXIII (Wroclawetc., 1978), 618-20. This article makes no mentionof Rembrandt's"Polish Rider." Somewhatmore surprisingly, there is no mentionof the "Polish Rider"in the articleon "Rembrandt"in the WielkaEncyklopedia Powszechna PWN [PWN universalencyclopedia], IX, (Warsaw,1967), 769-70. 32great Held, p. 197, n. 11. Also by 1991, Held had droppedall furtherspeculation about a Hungarianorigin for the painting,though he reprintedhis original observations.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 180 ThePolish Review evidence about the painting,as did some Polish scholars,like the military historian,Richard Brzezinski, who welcomed the new evidence and concluded that Chrošcicki"...had finallyidentified it as a portraitof a Lithuaniannobleman, Martin Alexander Ogiñski."33 Of course,even the compellingevidence accumulated by the above named scholarsdid not convinceeveryone. It was only a fewyears after the publicationof Chrošcicki's influentialarticle that Gary Schwartzignored all this evidence and proposedhis somewhatfanciful Tamerlane theory about the origin of the picture;34and about this same time Leonard Slatkes, echoing Held's earlierposition, denied thatthe Rider's arms and costume were specificallyPolish, pointed out theirgeneral "oriental" (that is, Central Asian and Middle Eastern) qualities,flatly rejected the significanceof the Bol portraitpurported to be of Ogiñski,and proposed his "young David" thesis.35A few years later, the Frick published a large and beautifully illustratedcatalogue of itspaintings, which treated the Ogiñski evidence as a mere "proposal," and put it on the same level as Bialostocki's "Socinian hypothesis."The author of this particularpassage added: "The rider's costume,his weapons,and the breedof his horsehave also been claimed as Polish. But if The Polish Rider is a portrait,it certainlybreaks with tradition."He/she explained: "Equestrian portraitsare not common in seventeenthcentury Dutch art,and furthermore,in the traditionalequestrian portraitthe rideris fashionablydressed and his mountis spiritedand well- bred." The author concluded by returningto Held's original Miles Christianustheory, though this theorytoo was treatedas simplyanother unverifiedproposal.36

33 RichardBrzezinski, Polish Armies1596-1696 , 2 vols. (London: Osprey, 1987),I, 5; Schama,Rembrandt's Eyes , pp. 599-603. He has, however,dropped it in his mostrecent publication, The Rembrandt Book(2006). Slatkes,Rembrandt and Persia, pp. 60-92. BerniceDavidson and others,Paintings from the Frick Collection(New York: Abrams,1990), pp. 58-60 (butwith pagination missing due to a printing error).This volume contains a beautifulcolor reproduction of the"Polish Rider" withclose-up details of the riderand his handsomeface. Some fourteenyears later,the Frick was onlya bitmore conclusive in itsjudgment, reporting that the canvas"is nota conventionalequestrian portrait, nor does it appearto represent a historicalor literaryfigure, though a numberhave been proposed.Rembrandt may have meantonly to portrayan exotichorseman, a popularcontemporary theme,or perhaps,intended the paintingas a glorificationof the latter-day Christianknights who in his timewere still defending eastern Europe from the advancingTurks." See The Frick Collection: Handbookof Paintings(New York: Frickand Scala Publishers,2004), p. 126. Sanger,Henry Clay Frick, pp. 72-4,was obviouslyinfluenced by thisopinion when she speculatedthat Henry Clay Frickidentified with the Rider as a Christianknight since he himselfwas a Masonic knightof the threehighest orders of the York Rite. This was highly

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 181 On a somewhat differentlevel, as late as 2007, Andrew Gregorovich,a Ukrainian researcherin Canada specializing in printed images and antiquemaps, somewhatmore firmlyrejected the identification withMarcjan Ogiñskiand again proposedthat the originalname be restored and the paintingcalled the "Cossack Rider." Gregorovichreturned to the older theorythat the eighteenthcentury Lithuanian Grand Hetmán,Michal Kazimierz Ogiñski, had purchased the painting and not inheritedit. Gregorovichalso provided some convincingevidence that Held' s major argumentas to why the paintingcould not be a UkrainianCossack - the idea thatseventeenth century Cossacks wore loose-fittingsharavary and not tightbreeches - was completelyoff-base. He printedseveral seventeenth centurypictures and drawingsof Cossacks, in fact,wearing such breeches and noted the similarityof the Rider's kuchmaand zhupan to those of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmán, Bohdan Khmelnytsky(d. 1657) and his followers.Indeed, so importantwere they to Ukrainianculture that the wordskuchma and zhupan remainedcurrent in the Ukrainianlanguage until recenttimes, the former even beingturned into a commonsurname.37 Continuinghis argumenton a slightlydifferent level, Gregorovich pointed out that the Rider's plain clothingand unimpressivehorse were more likelyto belong to a simple Cossack thanto a greatPolish magnate, and thatRembrandt probably knew somethingof the UkrainianCossacks unlikely,however, since Held firstenunciated his Miles Christianustheory some twenty-sevenyears after Frick' s death.As mentionedabove, in Frick's time, the Rider was much more associated with the strugglefor Polish independencethan with Christendom as a whole. It was even carriedby the secondpresident of independentUkraine, Leonid Kuchma,who governedthe country from 1994 to 2005. It shouldbe notedhere, however,that the word kuchma has changedits meaningsomewhat in modern Ukrainianand now also means "a bushyhead of hair."Max Vasmer [Maks Fasmer], in his Etimologicheskiislovar russkogo iazyka [Etymological dictionaryof the Russian language], 4 vols. (Moscow, 1964-73),II, 438, informs us thatit also enteredRussian from Ukrainian, and thatUkrainian had got it throughthe Polish kuczma from the Hungariankucsma. As for zhupan, MetropolitanIlarion, Etymolohichno-semantychnyislovnyk ukrainskoi movy [Etymological-semanticdictionary of theUkrainian tongue], 4 vols. (Winnipeg, 1979-1994),II, 51, tells us thatit enteredUkrainian from the Polish župan, whichin turnhad got it fromthe Italian giubbone or giupone, whichsignified a certainkind of jacket. Brückner,Slownik etymologiczny jçzyka polskiego , pp. 279, and 668, gives the same etymologies.It mustbe admitted,though, that these etymologies,if accurate,somewhat reduce the force of Zygulski's evidencethat such apparel came to Polandfrom the east and notfrom Italy, or, moresignificantly, Hungary. On theother hand, Brückner, p. 49, also believed " thatthe word for the horse-tail standard, buňczulť which was of Turkishorigin, " came to Polishfrom Ukrainian "... od Malej Rusi do nas [...to us fromLittle Russia].

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 182 ThePolish Review because their successful revolt against Polish rule was exactly contemporaneouswith the creationof his canvas and was reportedin the Dutch and French press of the time. Indeed, he continued,even the cartouchesof various maps of thattime displayed Cossack figureswhich might have been seen by Rembrandt.Gregorovich did not address Zygulski's argumentabout the completeauthenticity of the Rider's outfit (which required a sitter),but Bryk-Deviatnytsky,as noted above, had identifiedsome Ukrainianstudents at Frankener.Moreover, there were then stillmany Ukrainian Cossacks enrolledas lightcavalry in Polish armies,and even Ivan Mazepa, who was always noted forhis charmand success with the ladies, as mentionedabove, was in Holland at exactlythis time. On the other hand, any closer Ukrainian connectionswith Rembrandtand his paintinghave notyet been established.Thus while Gregorovich's hypothesis about a "Cossack Rider"may not convinceall, we may concludeat thevery leastthat it does revealthe extent to whichsome modernUkrainians identify withRembrandt's Rider.38 In the 1980s, however,many of the conclusions reached by the Polish, Ukrainian,and Dutch scholars who had investigatedRembrandt's familyand otherconnections with the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth, were put into question by certainmembers of the RembrandtResearch Project,an informalcommittee at the Rijksmuseumin Amsterdamwho, beginningin 1968, were investigatingRembrandt's entire corpus (which theybelieved had been greatlyinflated over the yearsby false attributions) to see what was actuallyproduced by the masterhimself as opposed to his studentsand imitators.The team, which was headed by Josua Bruyn of AmsterdamUniversity, and included such eminentRembrandt scholars as

38 AndrewGregorovich, "Rembrandt's Painting: 'Cossack Rider',"Forum: A UkrainianReview , no. 114 (Fall/winter,2007), 5-10. Withregard to Mazepa, it shouldbe notedthat the legendof his famous"ride" across the steppes,tied nakedto theback of a wildhorse by a jealous husbandas a resultof an amorous affair,dates fromsomewhat later. On Mazepa generally,see Clarence A. Manning,Hetmán of Ukraine:Ivan Mazeppa(New York: BookmanAssociates, 1957),esp. pp. 39-43,and HubertF. Babinski,The Mazepa Legendin European Romanticism(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1974). On his stay in Holland, see TheodoreMackiw, "Mazepa's Love Affairand Its Veracity," UkrainianQuarterly , XLIV, 1-2 (1988), who statesthat he spentone year (1657-8) studyingin thecity of Deventer.He quotesF.J.G. Ten Raa and F. De Bas (eds.), Het StaatscheLeger , 1568-1795 (Breda, 1913), VII, 238, to the effectthat "...Johannes Koledynski, latere Hetmán Mazeppa, was een jaar in Nederland bij GeschutfabriekWillem Wegewaad in Deventer" ["...Jan Koledyñski,later Hetmán Mazepa, spentone yearin theNetherlands at thearms factoryof WillemWegewaad in Deventer"].For an introductionto theproblem ofMazepa as portrayedin art,which, however, does nottreat the "Polish Rider," see JohnP. Pauls, "[A] GreatMaecenas of the Arts Glorifiedby Painters," UkrainianReview , XIII, 4 (London,1966), 17-32.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions " Rembrandt's"Polish Rider in itsEast EuropeanContext 183 Bob Haak and Ernstvan de Wetering,sought to purgethe artist'sinflated corpus through analysis of the style of the paintings and through iconographieand technicalmethods including autoradiography (analysis of brushstrokes). At least two membersof the team viewed each considered work in person and eventuallythe entire Rembrandtcorpus was to be divided into three categories: a) paintings recognized as authentic Rembrandtsb) disputableworks c) rejected works. Aftermany years of work,the team rejecteda greatmany paintingsas not being the work of Rembrandt.One of theserejected works was the famous"Man in a Golden Helmet" (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) which had previously been almost universallythought to have been by Rembrandt.Indeed, it had been considered one of his most impressive creations. Also the prestigious Wallace Collection in London saw its collection of Rembrandtsreduced fromtwelve to only one, thoughthe Wallace did not completelyaccept this judgment.Then in 1984, in a briefreview of a book by WernerSumowski on Rembrandt'sschool, Bruyn,for the firsttime since von Wurzbach in 1906, called into question Rembrandt'sauthorship of the "Polish Rider." Bruyncautiously suggested a possible attributionto the master's student, WillemDrost.39 Othermembers of the RembrandtResearch Project expressed their doubtsabout Rembrandt'sauthorship less formallyand did not necessarily believe it was Drost's work,but doubtsthey certainly had. For example in correspondenceand conversationswith Žygulski, Bruyn himself pointed out the soft outline of the Rider's figure,which in his opinion, was unlike Rembrandt,and indicated a female artistictemperament instead; Haak criticizeddisproportions in the figureof theRider and the strangenessof the horse,the nondescriptbackground and the lack of brushstrokes typical of Rembrandt;and van de Weteringmentioned the 'corporality'and 'stability' of humanfigures characteristic for Rembrandt but missing in theRider, who seems to be too unsubstantialand vibratingin the unreal gleam, and he opined upon the lack of close associationbetween the backgroundand the 39 J. Bruyn, review of W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schiller [Paintingsof the Rembrandtschool] 5 vols. (Landau, 1983-1990), in Oud Holland, vol. XCVIII (1984), 146-62,esp. 158. Bruynphrased his suggestion verycarefully, writing: "In thefield of Drostresearch much remains to be done. This applies to the portraits... as well as to the historypieces. A further examinationof the fieldreveals that a numberof paintingsstill acceptedas Rembrandtscannot be forgotten:'A Man Seated with a Stick' in London (NationalGallery, no. 51) whichhas alreadybeen questioned by MacLaren,and theso-called 'Polish Rider' in theFrick Collection, which shows at least[some] affinitieswith Drost's early work which was stronglyinfluenced by Rembrandt."". . .of de z. g. Poolse ruiterin de Frick Collectiondie op zijn minsttreffende verwant schappen vertoont met Drosts vroege,Rembrandtieke werk." Translatedwith the help of Alta Vista Babel Fish translationservice on- line.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 184 ThePolish Review Rider,which would be indicativeof a painterother than Rembrandt. In this way, the entirequestion of the authorshipof the paintingwas opened up quitewidely and themuch-feared authorship genie certainlycame out of the bottle.40 In general,however, Bruyn's tentativeattribution to Drost, made withoutexplanation or evidence, but made by one of the world's most authoritativeRembrandt scholars, to say nothingabout the privateopinions of other Project team members,caused an immediateuproar among art historiansand museumcurators to whom this attributionseemed fantastic. The Frick Gallery in New York refused to change its attributionto Rembrandtin its catalogues; Held was indignantand in an intervieweven referredto the RembrandtResearch Project as "the Amsterdammafia," and AnthonyBailey wrote an entirebook pointingout the weaknesses in the team's argumentsand puttingits qualificationsand methodsunder the same microscopeas theyhad done withthe "Polish Rider." In his book, Bailey managedto treatthe RembrandtResearch Project with a certainamount of respect,but still,finding its attentionto documentationinadequate and its relianceon moderntechnology too rigid,saw some ironyin its overlysevere judgmentsof a kindsometimes unadvisedly made by connoisseurs.He even quoteda limerickfrom the 1920s to theeffect that:

Whenthe Rembrandt came to thecleaner It began to look meanerand meaner. Said Rembrandtvan Rijn, I doubtit is mine, Ask Bode or else Valentiner.41

Somewhatin thissame vein,New York artist,Russell Connoreven painted a canvas purportingto show Rembrandtactually painting his controversial picture.Connor titled his composition:"Hands offthe 'Polish Rider!"'42

40 Zdzislaw Žygulski,"Further Battles for the Lisowczyk(Polish Rider) by Rembrandt,"Artibus et Historiae, XXI, 41 (2000), 197-205,esp. 203. Žygulski himself,however, never seems to havedoubted the authorship of Rembrandt. By contrast,further east, ViktorVlasov, in his comprehensiveRussian-language encyclopediaof art,referred to the Rideras "a conventionallynamed picture whichhad beenearlier ascribed to Rembrandt."Vlasov printeda reproductionof the paintingin his encyclopedia,but put a questionmark after Rembrandt's name. See V. Vlasov, "Polskii vsadnik" [The Polish rider] Novii entsiklopedicheskiislovar izobrazitelnogo iskusstva [New encyclopedic dictionaryof pictorial art] VII (St Petersburg,2007), 576-7. 41 See Bailey,Responses to Rembrandt, p. 123, n. 3, forthe limerick, and p. 94 for Held's remarkabout "the Amsterdammafia." On these issues more generally,see Donald Sassoon,"The NeverendingProject," Muse , IX, 3 (March 1, 2005), 8. eLibrary.Web.01 Oct. 2010.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Rembrandt's"Polish Rider" in itsEast EuropeanContext 185 This growingchorus of protestover the "Polish Rider" in which Americans,and New Yorkersin particular,played such an importantrole, coincided with the retirementof Bruynand several othermembers of the Project and a public declarationthat its methods,especially its "over- rigorousclassification of thepaintings into categories," would be changed.43 A youngerscholar, Ernst van de Wetering,took over bothBruyn' s chairat AmsterdamUniversity and chairmanshipof the Project. It was not long beforevan de Weteringexpressed an opinionon the "Polish Rider" quite at variancewith thatof Bruyn.In van de Wetering'sview, the paintingwas indeedby Rembrandt,but certainparts may have been completedby a later hand,possibly one of his students.The faces of theRider and his horseseem to have been by Rembrandtbut the new chairmanbelieved the shankof his boot and the folded-backtail of the coat and possiblyhis hose were by that otherhand.44 A fewyears later, Jonathan Bikker published the first scholarly synthesison Willem Drost and statedcategorically that no argumentshad been made supportingDrost's authorshipof the Riderand he saw no reason for attributingit to him.45Thereafter, Robert Hughes, writingin the New YorkReview of Books, summedup Anglo-Americanopinion on the matter thus:

There can be few paintingsof comparablequality of which less is knownfor sure than the "Polish Rider."But thedoubts cast on it by the RembrandtResearch Project are also guesswork.The effortsto reattributeit to one of Rembrandt'spupils, Willem Drost, about whose life and work very littleis known,are quite inconclusive. They are like attemptsto "prove" thatHamlet was reallywritten by someone otherthan William Shakespeare- but someonewho was stillas good a writeras Shakespeare,for whose existencethere is no actual evidence. Until such a phantom turns up, to imagine Rembrandtwithout the "Polish Rider" is ratherlike tryingto 46 imagineWagner without Parsifal

42 Connor's painting(68x64 in.) is reproducedon-line fromhis personal collection.See www.russellconner.com/gallery_7.htmlAccessed August 19, 2010. 43 Forthe declaration, see Bailey,Responses to Rembrandt, pp. 115-6. Ernstvan de Wetering,Rembrandt: The Painter at Work(Amsterdam: AmsterdamUniversity Press, 1997), pp. 207-11, witha portraitof the Rider. The New York newspapersdid not let van de Wetering'sopinion go without notice. See Carol Vogel, "Rembrandtat Frick Passes," New York Times, October24, 1997. JonathanBikker, Willem Drost (1633-1659): A RembrandtPupil in Amsterdamand Venice(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 2005), sectionR16, witha portraitof the Rider. Hughes,p. 10.

This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:53:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 186 ThePolish Review Could theentire question have been statedany moreclearly? By way of conclusion, it may be said that the "Polish Rider" remains one of Rembrandt's most mysteriousand most controversial paintings.Its origin,provenance, and meaninghave aroused debate since it firstcame to the attentionof the westernpublic at the end of the nineteenth century.Was the Rider reallya Cossack as he was identifiedwhen he was firstdocumented? Or, less likely,was he a Tataras von Wurzbachthought? Or, again, was he a Pole, or a Lithuanian?And what meaningdid these nationalcategories have in the mid-seventeenthcentury when Rembrandt paintedhis canvas? More basically,did thepainting originate as a portraitor merelyan allegorical representationof some historicalor literaryfigure? And mostbasically of all, was it Rembrandthimself who paintedit, or one of his studentsor imitators?The evidencepresented above tendsto support theidea thatthe author of thepainting, or at leastthe most important parts of it,was indeedRembrandt and thatit was a portraitof a veryreal personinto which allegorical meanings (only perhaps intendedby Rembrandt)have been read by certainmodern scholars. Moreover, the identificationof this personwith the Lithuanianmagnate, Marcjan AleksanderOgiñski, is fairly firm,if not conclusive.We may thusend by sayingthat Rembrandt's Rider of about 1650, if not a Pole by politicalorigin, ethnicity, or religion,was at least an actual citizen of the great multi-nationalPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealthwho was, in fact,registered as a "Pole" in theUniversity of Leyden, and who later in a certain sense (like many other Orthodox Rutheniansof thatera) mighthave become a "Pole" throughhis conversion to Catholicism.Moreover, his family- Ruthenianand Lithuanianby origin, and Polish and Lithuanianby destiny- was to play an importantrole in that constitutionallycomplex polity called thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the end of its existence.Thus thoughsome, with a certainamount of justification,may referto it in otherways, the picture's current label, "Polish Rider,"remains more or less accurateboth because of theprovenance of the paintingthrough the Royal Collectionof StanislawAugust and the Dzików Castle in Galicia, and also because of the complex personalhistory of the Ogiñskifamily in general,and of Marcjan AleksanderOgiñski in particular, who is presentlythe best-known candidate for being Rembrandt's marvelous and eternallyintriguing "Polish Rider."

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