Lot 106: A FRENCH BRONZE OVAL PORTRAIT RELIEF OF TADEUSZ KOSCIUSZKO BY HEINRICH SANDERS DMOCJOWSKI (19TH CENTURY)

shown in three-quarter profile to sinister, inscribed TADEUSZ KOSCIUSZKO UR.1746.?1817, the border of laurel and oak leaves entwined with an inscribed band surmounted by a Polish eagle, the date 1794 below Related Literature Michaud, Biographie Universelle, vol. XXII, Paris, pp. 141-143 J. Gaggaty and M. Evans, Dictionary of American National Biography, vol. 12, New York and Oxford, 1999, pp. 884-885 J. Mckay, The Dictionary of Sculptors in Bronze, Woodbridge, 1977, p. 106 Tadeusz Andrej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (1746-1817) was a Polish patriot and soldier who was educated at the military schools in Warsaw and Versailles and attained the rank of captain in the Polish army. After a forbidden love affair forced him into exile, he traveled to North America at the start of the American Revolution to join General Washington's army. He later returned to Poland where he joined a reorganized Polish army as major-general and fought against the Russians. He subsequently resigned his commission after the second partition of Poland and headed an abortive revolution of Poland in 1794 at which time he was captured by the Russians at the battle of Maciejowice. He was released on parole and traveled back to the United States and was given great honor, finally retiring near Paris. In 1806, Napoleon requested that he join in the invasion of Poland but Kosciuszko refused. He then moved to Switzerland where he died in 1817; his body was taken to the cathedral in Krakow. Heinrich Sanders Dmocjowski (1810-1863) was born in Vilna and died in Philadelphia. He fled to France after the collapse of the Polish uprising of 1830 and after studying there, emigrated to the United States where he built up a considerable reputation as a portrait sculptor. His best known work is the statue of his compatriot, Casimir Pulaski in Savannah Georgia.