363 - Hipolit LIPIŃSKI (Nowy Targ, 1846 – Kraków, 1884)

Hipolit LIPIŃSKI (Nowy Targ, 1846 – Kraków, 1884) Niedziela Zielna or Herb Sunday (circa 1881) Oil on canvas, signed lower left in red “H. Lipinski.” Framed. Restored. H. 56 x W. 119 cm. Provenance French private collection. Exhibition Most likely exhibited at the Aleksander Krywult Salon, Hotel Europejski, Warsaw, “Wystawa Obrazów A. Krywulta,” early 1882. Literature Kłosy. Illustrated weekly magazine devoted to literature, science, and art, Warsaw, Salomon Lewental, vol. XXXIV, no. 868, February 4–16, 1882, reproduced on p. 16. (see illustration) Biography Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and later in Munich, Hipolit Lipiński (1846–1884) returned to Poland in the early 1870s before joining Jan Matejko’s composition studio. He quickly established himself as one of the most attentive observers of Polish folk life, devoting a large part of his work to markets, processions, religious festivals, and rural traditions, which he depicted in vast compositions animated by a multitude of figures. Our painting belongs squarely to this mature period and represents a significant rediscovery within the artist’s body of work. Preserved until now in a private collection in southern France, with no known provenance or recollection of its identity, it can now be identified thanks to its reproduction in the Warsaw illustrated magazine *Kłosy*, published February 4–16, 1882, under the title “Niedziela Zielna .” This publication, produced during Lipiński’s lifetime, allows us to restore the work’s title and date its creation to shortly before 1882, most likely around 1881. The scene depicts the feast of the Virgin Mary known as “Matka Boska Zielna,” celebrated on August 15, during which women brought bouquets of flowers, herbs, and grains to the church to be blessed. Lipiński presents here a true chronicle of Polish rural life, in which groups of peasants dressed in their Sunday best, children, horses, and carts line the path leading to the church. With its panoramic format, narrative flair, and ethnographic precision in the depiction of costumes and poses, the work is directly linked to the major popular compositions the artist created around the turn of the 1880s. This reappearance thus constitutes a major rediscovery, bringing to light an important work by Lipiński that had seemed to have been lost since its publication in 1882.