3-069-023 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817) in Armour-Copy, between 1780-1800. Participant of the American War of Independence, the Polish-Russian war (1792) and the future commander of the Uprising of 1794, portrayed here as younger than he actually was (at the time of creation of this painting, he was more than 45 years old). He is equipped with an archaic knight's armour, a helmet and a sword, idealised and presented as a romantic hero and knight. On the sword, we can see an inscription: 'Pro Patria' (For the Homeland). Kosciuszko is wearing two orders on his chest: an image of an eagle on a blue ribbon with a white edge, a sign of his membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, founded by veteran soldiers of the American Revolution in 1783, and the VirtutiMilitari ('For Military Virtue') Order, established by the Polish King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski after the victorious battle with the Russians and members of the Targowica Confederation at Zielence in the defence of the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791. Dorota Dec