Portrait of Erazm Barącz

In 1908 Krakow belonged to Austria-Hungary, and the salt mine at Wieliczka just outside it was an imperial state works. The man in this portrait spent his career there. Erazm Baracz was a mining engineer who drew the maps, plans and technical drawings of the workings and headed the Wieliczka mines from 1915 to 1921, and one of the chambers underground carries his name. Above ground he collected. He put together some 500 objects, more than 100 of them paintings by Polish artists he knew personally, Wyczolkowski among them, and he handed the collection to the National Museum in Krakow, which set up a department named after him. The portrait is in that museum, oil on cardboard and almost square at 76 by 80 centimetres. Wyczolkowski painted him again a few years later.