Red Umbrella

In 1917 Kraków was still part of Austria-Hungary and the First World War was in its fourth year. That summer Mehoffer and his wife Jadwiga spent their last holidays at Jankówka, a small 18th-century larch-wood manor in the hills near Wieliczka that they had bought ten years earlier. Before the year was out they had sold it. The garden you see was laid out by Mehoffer himself, on a symmetrical plan of beds and winding paths in the French manner, though he filled it mostly with Polish flowers and shrubs. Jadwiga sits on the steps in a pale dress, reading in the shade of the red parasol that gives the picture its name. The painting stayed with the family for more than 90 years. In 2010 the artist's grandson, Ryszard Mehoffer, agreed to sell it to the National Museum in Kraków instead of putting it on the open market, and it now hangs in the Józef Mehoffer House on Krupnicza Street, the Kraków house where the painter lived in his later years.