Hunting certificate
CATALOGUE ENTRY
Prints and drawings
Lithographic and photographic workshop of Maksymilian Fajans
Warsaw
mid-19th century
Lithograph, paper
26.5 x 21 cm
Wil.4387
A headed document certifying the holder’s participation in hunting organized in the estate of count and countess Potocki, drawn up in the technique of flat printing or lithography (the colour version called chromolithography), typical for, and commonly used in, the 19th century. It constitutes an interesting example of the art of printing, which at that time went through a period of dynamic development and prosperity. In particular the so-called functional prints became popular and easily accessible to general public; among them diploma templates, menu cards, calendars, lottery tickets and certificates of the type presented here. Meant to be used for various purposes, not necessarily prestigious, they were nevertheless often artistic in character.
Such is the case of the copy in question. A frame decorated with hunting trophies and accessories, intertwined with a vine branch, surrounds blanks to be filled in. The names of game species, ‘Boars, Stags, Foxes and Hares’ stand alongside blanks destined to hold the number of hunted animals. At the bottom of the composition there is a stone with a rifle and a hunter’s bag holding the coat of arms of the Potocki family, i.e. Pilawa.
The lithograph was made in the workshop of Maksymilian Fajans, active in Warsaw in years 1853-1890. His was one of the first workshops which specialized in lithographic prints as well as photography. Fajans obtained artistic education at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and later in Paris, where he studied with Ary Scheffer. This fact accounts for his prints standing out from the contemporary massive production of the same kind with their unquestionable taste and careful drawing.
Marta Gołąbek
