Portrait of a sitting man with a cane

Edward Bonifacy Pawłowicz (1825–1909) started his art studies under Kanuty Rusiecki in Vilnius, and from 1849 he continued his training at St Petersburg Academy of Art, graduating in 1853. His portrait of a man (P.A. Kasicki?) is a student work, but it reflects the skill of a mature artist. We do not have any information about the sitter, but his appearance and posture lead us to believe that he was either a St Petersburg intellectual or an official or industrialist. Sitting in an armchair and leaning on a cane with both hands, the man seems to express concentration and attention, which is directed at someone in front of him and invisible to us. There is nothing official or showy about the portrait, as would be typical of society portraits. It has a warm and domestic tone, and in its intimacy it recalls Biedermeier aesthetics. The artist modelled the sitter, the details of his suit and the back of the red chair meticulously and with superb technique, while the face is rendered with almost photographic precision.