Bonhams to sell portraits from one of Europes greatest dynasties
Published November 6th, 2007
AuctionPublicity.com - Two portraits, belonging to the well-known Radziwill family, will be sold at Bonhams on 13 November 2007 at New Bond Street, London, in the 19 th Century European Paintings sale. The paintings are by Jacek Malczewski (Polish, 1854-1929), one of the most famous painters of Polish symbolism and are estimated respectively at £10,000-15,000 and £2,000-3,000.
The Radziwill family has been the most powerful aristocratic family in Poland for 500 years, creating and preserving enormous wealth and influence. The family was ennobled by the Holy Roman Emperor and over the centuries has produced many exceptional politicians, entrepreneurs and military commanders who have helped to shape Poland’s history.
Outside of Poland, the Radziwill family is probably most famous for its connection to Jackie Kennedy Onassis, America’s most renowned First Lady. Jackie’s younger sister, Lee Radziwill, entered the family in 1959 when she married Prince Stanislaw Radziwill. The couple had two children, Anthony and Anna, although they divorced in 1974. Anthony Radziwill died in 1999 aged 40, just two weeks after the death of his cousin John F. Kennedy and his wife, Carolyn, in a plane crash in Massachusetts.
The portraits are the property of the late Prince Jerzy Mikolaj Radziwill, who died earlier this year. The first is an oil painting of Witold Hausner (1852-1925) and the other is a watercolour of his wife, the Marchese Guilia Asinari Di Bernezzo. The Hausners and the Radziwills were supposed to be good friends and it is believed that the paintings passed into the Radziwill family through this friendship.
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