Portrait of Maria Róża Kronenberg and Róża Maria Karolina Kronenberg with a dog 1860

Józef Simmler painted this portrait of Maria Róża Kronenberg and Róża Maria Karolina Kronenberg with a dog, likely in Warsaw, sometime in the mid-19th century. The work captures the bourgeois aspirations of the rising professional class in Poland. Consider the symbolic weight of the lush drapery and idealized landscape backdrop, visual codes that reference wealth, leisure, and familial harmony. The artist has carefully constructed an image designed to project a specific vision of Polish society, one that suggests both a continuity with aristocratic values and an embrace of modernity. This painting can be seen as an important historical document reflecting Poland's complex social and economic transformations during this period. Through careful research into the Kronenberg family and the institutions in which Simmler operated, we can better understand the role art played in shaping social identities in 19th-century Poland.