3-068-846 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Józef Gabriel Stempkowski (d. 1793), Voivode of Kyiv, between 1768-1780. Additional Info: The man in the uniform of the national contingent from the times of Stanislaw August Poniatowski is Józef Gabriel Stempkowski. He was initially a nobleman of mediocre fortune, but he actively got involved in political life and held various offices. He was one of the king's continuing supporters, and when sent to Ukraine to stop the Bar Confederation, he bloodily suppressed the peasant insurgency of the haidamakas, which at that time, in 1768, had its culmination in the Massacre of Uman. In 1785 he was appointed the voivode of Kyiv. In Labun, Volhynia, he built a spacious palace in which welcomed in 1787 Stanislaw August with a sumptuous party. Life beyond his means ruined Stempkowski, who died indebted in Warsaw in 1793. In the portrait, we can see him in military clothes, with the red sash of the Order of Saint Stanislaus, which he received in 1768. In his right hand, he holds a colonel's mace, and on his finger, there is a ring with a diamond-studded monogram "SAR" (Stanislaus Augustus Rex)-the king often gave this type to deserved people.