3-102-294 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Polish Rider', c1655, (1967). In the mysterious setting of this painting, with echoes of Dürer's etching 'Knight, Death, and the Devil', the horseman - whether a portrait of a particular person or a biblical, historical, or fictional character - gazes to his right, nearly behind him, holding the horse's reins with his left hand and a war hammer with his right. His clothing and weaponry have been associated with Polish conventions. The hilltop building has not been identified as an actual place, and the significance of the figures gathered at a fire on the right is unclear. The painting has been known as The Polish Rider since the late nineteenth century, but its connection to Poland dates to 1791, when the Polish aristocrat Michal Kazimierz Oginski offered it to King Stanislaw August Poniatowski, possibly in exchange for valuable orange trees. Painting in the Frick Collection, New York. From "Rembrandt" by Ludwig Münz and Bob Haak, [Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1967]