Jerzy Kossak, NAPOLEON BEFORE THE SFINKS, 1929

60.7 x 110.5 cm - oil, canvas

Signature p.d.: Jerzy Kossak | 1929



The year 1929 saw a distinct turn in Jerzy Kossak's painting, which can be considered the beginning of a mature period, the peak of his entire artistic output. This period lasted more or less until 1939. This decade saw the creation of his best works, original, independent, composed according to his own ideas, large-format, with historical content, much of it documentary. Here we find numerous paintings of indisputable artistic merit, ambitious, elaborate, already fully deserving the name of a good continuation of the Kossaks' realistic art. (...)

The entire year of 1929 was filled with a number of successful paintings by Jerzy, such as The Charge of the Light Cavalry in the Somosierra Gorge, in an original side view of his own and different from Wojciech's. Napoleonic themes continued: Napoleon observes the army crossing the Niemen River, Retreat from burning Moscow, Crossing the Berezina River, Napoleon in retreat in a sleigh with a military escort.

Kazimierz Olszanski, Jerzy Kossak, Ossolineum Publishing House 1992, pp. 22-23



The Egyptian campaign was primarily intended to weaken Britain's economic position and give the French a beachhead from which to embark for India. On July 21, 1798, under the pyramids, Napoleon said, Soldiers! Remember, forty centuries he looks down on you from the heights of these monuments and led them to the victory that opened the way to Cairo and allowed him to conquer Egypt.

Kossak immortalized the battle of the pyramids on one of his canvases in 1927. The featured Napoleon in front of the Sphinx is a pensive painting. The hustle and bustle of the battlefield does not come from it, no gunshots or the clang of sabers can be heard. The artist has depicted only a man in the face of the might of the ancient world. Napoleon, seated on a horse, looks back at four thousand years of history with awe and respect. The Egyptian campaign was not only a purely military expedition but also a scientific one. In addition to soldiers, Napoleon took with him some 170 researchers whose task was to study the legacy of the pharaohs. The expedition sparked a European fascination with antiquity and led to more archaeological expeditions.

Napoleon in front of the Sphinx, dating from the best period of his work, a unique and hitherto unknown composition by Jerzy Kossak, is an unheard-of treat for collectors of the artist's works.

Jerzy Kossak (Krakow 1886 - Krakow 1955)- son of Wojciech, grandson of Juliusz Kossak- from early childhood painted under the direction of his father and grandfather. A continuator and imitator of their art, he created battle, historical and genre scenes with the omnipresent motif of the horse. He painted pictures of the November Uprising, the Napoleonic Wars and many scenes from the 1920 war. His best-known composition of this kind was Miracle on the Vistula. He also painted numerous Chases and Lancer Chases with Cossacks, Wolf Raids, Hunting and Weddings. The subject matter of these works makes them constantly popular with collectors and the public, always thronging to exhibitions of Kossak paintings.