Dimensions: 87 x 46 cm
Signature: signed l.g.: P Szyndler (visible under UV light), exhibition sticker on the stretcher
Provenance
Warsaw, private collection
Exhibited
Warsaw, National Museum in Warsaw, Orientalism in Painting, Drawing and Graphics in Poland in the 19th and 1st Half of the 20th Century, 17.10 - 21.12.2008.
Reproduced
Kozak A., Majda T. [editor], Orientalism in Painting, Drawing and Graphics in Poland in the 19th and 1st Half of the 20th Century [exhibition catalog], National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 2008, p. 228.
Literature
Wójcik A., Drama in seraglio - Girl in the bath. Around the painting by Pantaleon Szyndler (1880), "Bulletin of Art History", R. LXXVI, no. 2, 2014, p. 224.
The featured painting is the author's replica of a much larger work titled "Girl in the Bath", which is in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow, purchased directly from the artist. The composition is part of a series of oriental nudes by Szyndler - such as "Hurysa," "Odalisque," "Turkish Girl" and "Slave Girl" - showing idealized Eastern beauties in intimate, sensual scenes.
Against the backdrop of a dark bathhouse interior, the artist depicted a naked young woman with her back turned, standing on a richly decorated carriage. Gently bent over, she holds with her hands a golden, translucent shawl that flows softly down her hips and thighs. The girl's hair, combed up and tied with a red ribbon, emphasizes the slenderness of her neck and the fine outline of her back. Her pale, almost alabaster complexion contrasts with the dark background and the shimmering sheen of the golden fabric. In the background, an arcaded alcove barely glimmers - on the left with a gushing fountain, on the right with a metal bath bowl. On the carpet, at the girl's feet, the artist placed discarded bracelets - a sign of female vanity, but also a symbol of lost innocence. Critics raved about the composition, writing that Szyndler "painted a beautifully bare figure of a girl. There seems to be blood on the canvas pulsating through this soft, white, young body, only slightly covered with transparent silk gauze. P. Szyndler has here developed unusual allure and softness successfully" (M. K., Polish Painting, "Prawda", 3, 1883, no. 4, p. 44).
The offered work by Szyndler belongs to a series of several smaller variants with similar subject matter and composition. In one, a young woman appears in the company of a harem ruler and a eunuch (Drama in the Seraglio), in another - with a single man (Woman in the Bath), and in a third - in a scene with a gushing fountain (Virgin in the Bath). In each of these shots, the artist combines academic perfection of technique with exotic sensuality, typical of Orientalist painting of the second half of the 19th century. The presented intimate, subtle variant of "Girl in the Bath" delights with balanced eroticism and excellent painterly development of the nude. Szyndler - faithful to the academic tradition, yet sensitive to atmosphere and light - achieves here a masterful effect of class and elegance, making this representation one of the most sophisticated studies of the female body in his oeuvre.
