Death of Ellenai
Jacek Malczewski (1854 to 1929) · 1883
In a dark log hut somewhere in Siberia, a young woman lies dead on a bed of furs, her long hair spread out, her hands folded, a candle burning by her head. Beside her a man in a rough coat sits with his head bowed, utterly alone. Snow shows through the small window. She is Ellenai and he is Anhelli, the figures of a poem by Juliusz Slowacki about Polish exiles in Siberia, and this is the moment the poem's only tenderness ends.
Malczewski painted it in eighteen eighty three, when he was twenty nine and still working in the realist manner of his teacher Matejko. Look at the simplicity of the composition: two figures, one horizontal, one bent, in a bare interior lit by a single flame and the cold light from the window. The furs, the candle, the wooden walls are painted with great care, but everything serves the mood. The subject of Siberian exile was personal for every Polish family of the time; thousands had been deported after the uprisings of eighteen thirty and eighteen sixty three, and Malczewski returned to the theme throughout his life before turning to the strange symbolic self portraits of his later years.
The painting was bought by the museum in eighteen eighty four, one of the first purchases of the new institution, and it has hung in the Sukiennice since. Later versions of the scene are in Warsaw and elsewhere, but this is the original and the largest. It stands at the point where Polish realism turns into symbolism, and it is the painting that made Malczewski's name.
Did You Know? Malczewski painted the same scene again several times, but this first version was bought by the museum only a year after it was finished.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.