A Painting by Jean de Troy from the Collection of Wojciech Kolasiński at the National Museum in Warsaw

Abstract

Residing in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw is a painting titled Praying Monk, purchased for the Museum of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1888 as the work of an unknown Spanish painter. Its owner was Wojciech Kolasiński (1852–1916), a painter, collector and painting restorer who had amassed a large and valuable collection of paintings and artistic handicrafts. The piece in question, produced in the 1680s, was initially believed to be a work of Francisco Zurbarán, after which the attribution was changed to Andrea Sacchi and later to an unknown Italian artist. However, in 1993, Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée connected the Warsaw painting to Jean de Troy. It was discovered that two sanguine drawings by Jean de Troy reside in the collection of the Musée Atger in Montpellier. One of these, signed with the artist’s surname, showing a resting monk in frontal view with his hand on an open book, is a sketch for the Warsaw painting. Working for Cardinal Pierre de Bonzi, the archbishop of Narbonne and head of the Estates of Languedoc, Jean de Troy (1638–91) was the beneficiary of the largest commissions in Montpellier at the time, producing many official portraits and religious compositions for the city’s cathedral, as well as paintings for the private residences of influential city officials and nobles. Jean de Troy came from a family of artists: his younger brother, François de Troy (1645–1730), was the director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1708–11, while his nephew, Jean-François de Troy (1679–1752), was one of the illustrious and influential artists working in the court of Louis XV and served as the director of the French Academy in Rome in 1738–52.