Portrait of Ignacy Potocki

This is clearly one of the fines surviving pastel drawings by Anna Rajecka, and it speaks volumes about the artistic talent of the woman artist who received a scholarship grant from King Stanisław August Poniatowski. She was taught by the French pastel artist Louis Marteau. Based in Poland, Marteau commemorated in his portraits most of the eminent figures from the circle of King Stanisław August and from notable magnate families. Thanks to Marteau's protection, Rajecka received the royal grant and around 1783 she left for France to continue her artistic education, probably in one of the three private schools for ladies then open at the Louvre, possibly the one headed by Greuze, whose influence is clearly felt in her art. In 1788, she married a French miniaturist Pierre-Marie Gault de Saint Germain and never returned to Poland. The portrait of Ignacy Potocki was probably made after the death of his wife Izabela (Elżbieta) z Lubomirskich Potocka, during his stay in Paris late in 1783 or in the first quarter of 1784. The picture deploys a pale blue colour scheme. Her deft use of the crayon renders perfectly the textures of the cloth, the fur collar and the lace. The artist was able to subtly capture the expression of the young man known among his contemporaries as "that beautiful Potocki": the sitter is looking intently at the viewer as if he were about to speak. A few years later, in 1789, Rajecka made a portrait of Aleksandra Potocka, wife of Stanisław Kostka Potocki, Ignacy's brother. That charming portrait à la antique in a wreath of oak leaves was sadly lost in World War II and is only known from photographs - an irreparable loss, especially as it bore a signature of the artist, Gault de Germain née Rajecka année 1789.