List Miłosny 1880

Władysław Czachórski painted ‘Love Letter’ in oils some time in the late 19th century. The image gives us a snapshot of a man in historical dress pausing over his correspondence. The painting is rich in social detail. The man's elegant costume gives him a theatrical air, while the presence of the dog and the discarded letter hint at his emotions. Czachórski was Polish, but he trained and spent his career in Munich, which was then a leading center for historical genre painting. This style was very popular with the new middle-class audience for art, who had the money to buy paintings, and were eager to learn about history and culture through engaging images. In his own time, Czachórski was praised for his realism. But as historians, we can also look at the ways that his images reflected the aspirations and fantasies of the society that produced them. Old letters and exhibition reviews can tell us a great deal about the painting’s original audience.