Ferdynand Ruszczyc, ŁÓDKA, 1893

11,9 x 17,3 cm - oil, cardboard glued on cardboard

Signed p.d.: F. Ruszczyc | 93

Attached to the painting is a confirmation of authenticity, issued by Ferdynand Ruszczyc, art historian and grandson of the artist, dated November 2025.



The landscape most likely depicts the Latvian Baltic coast, near Vindava (Ventspils), where Ferdynand Ruszczyc stayed in May 1893, or Libava (Liepaja), where his family owned a house. Although he was formally only in his second year of painting studies (not counting attending classes as a free student), his very good painting technique is evident in the brushstroke. The painting combines both the experience gained from Ivan Shishkin's studio and his own less realistic modernist vision of the landscape, clearly influenced by Danish and German art of the period.

Ferdynand Ruszczyc (Bohdanow 1870 - Bohdanow 1936) - an outstanding painter and pedagogue, an adept of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, where in 1892-1897 he studied under I. I. Shyshkin and A Kuindzhi. His student works were awarded medals from the Academy several times. He traveled extensively as an artist - in 1894 and 1895 he traveled to Crimea, in 1896 and 1897 he traveled via Königsberg and Szczecin to Rügen, Bornholm and southern Sweden, and in 1898 to Berlin, Cologne, Paris, Dunkirk, Ostend, Brussels, Basel, Lucerne, Lugano, Milan, Venice and Vienna. In 1897 he settled in the family estate of Bohdan. Since 1900 he was a member of the Society of Polish Artists "Art". Since 1904 he was a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, in 1907-1908 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Later he returned to Vilnius, where he became an animator of the local artistic life. After World War I, he was an organizer and professor of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. He painted primarily landscapes imbued with a highly emotional feeling for nature and wildlife. Ruszczyc's paintings Earth or Nec Mergitur are among the most outstanding examples of the Symbolist trend in Young Poland painting. He also painted the interiors of his family's manor house in Bohdanov, and was involved in theatrical stage design, illustration and book graphics.