A young, talented, Pole and Jew, Maurycy Gottlieb, the last romantic, a promising artist, a pupil and admirer of Jan Matejko, rejected by his beloved. And the girl, Laura Rosenfeld, young, beautiful, today known as the 'painter's fiancée' from her portrait in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Both bound together by a story without a happy ending.

Maurycy Gottlieb's family

Maurycy Gottlieb went down in art history as an outstanding Jewish painter with deep ties to Polish culture. An exceptionally gifted and sensitive colourist, he was equally enthusiastic about Polish history and literature, Jewish tradition and biblical themes. A first-rate humanist portraitist and author of symbolic, expressive self-portraits. The short but intense life of the young painter is surrounded by the legend of a brilliant artist, whose star shone only for a short while, but still enchants with its glow today.

Maurycy was born on 21 February 1856 in Drohobych, a few dozen kilometres south-west of Lviv, in a town which more than 70 years later would become famous for another artist, this time of words - Bruno Schulz.

The Gottliebs were a wealthy, respected, Jewish family, progressive and open-minded. They raised their numerous offspring in the spirit of the modern ideals of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. Maurice was the eldest, educated in public schools, but his real passion was drawing. He blazed a trail for his three brothers - Martin, Philip and Leopold also became painters.

Maurice Gottlieb's first steps in painting

Gottlieb's talents led to his expulsion from the Lvov grammar school after he drew a caricature of his teacher. We can only guess that it was very successful. He had to complete the school externally.

Luckily, his father appreciated and supported his artistic abilities, and despite the fact that the Torah forbids the making of images of living beings, he allowed him to be educated in the studio of a Lvov painter and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1872, at the age of 16, Maurycy Gottlieb was admitted to the class of history painting.

It was in Vienna that he discovered the work of Jan Matejko, and saw his painting Rejtan at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. The painting made such a profound impression on the young man that he begged his father to agree to further studies in Krakow under the work's author. In 1873, Maurycy Gottlieb became a second-year student at Krakow's School of Fine Arts.

Maurycy Gottlieb a pupil of Jan Matejko

In Matejko's work, the young Jew was fascinated not only by the theatrical panache and spontaneity of the canvases, but also by the themes of the works, which were close to Gottlieb. With the help of art, Master Jan revived the former greatness of the country, told the story of Polish history and reminded us of national identity. A manifestation of Gottlieb's attitude became 'Self-Portrait in the Attire of a Polish Nobleman'. "I am a Pole and a Jew and I want to work for both, when God gives," he wrote in a letter with youthful idealism and a belief that art could erase the religious and social differences between the two nations.

After a year of study in Krakow, he returned to Vienna hurt by anti-Semitic speeches and reportedly by the jealousy of his colleagues. He also soon moved to the academy in Munich with a letter of recommendation from Matejko, and soon reappeared in Vienna. This is where his beloved, Laura Rosenfeld (1875-1944), lived.

Portrait of his fiancée and her face in the paintings of Maurice Gottlieb

The girl, like her future portraitist, came from an assimilated Jewish family. She was born in Brno, Moravia, received a careful education and upbringing, and after her father's death, settled with her mother in Vienna. At the end of 1875 or at the beginning of 1876, she met Maurice. They were each 18 or 19 years old. Enchanted by Laura, the painter quickly proposed.

The beautiful face of his fiancée appeared in a scene from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in the composition Shylock and Jessyka, still created in Munich. Gottlieb received a gold medal from the local academy for the painting, and critics praised the depth of emotion of the characters depicted and the artist's artistry.

The painting, known today from a black-and-white photograph and a copy made by Martin Gottlieb - Maurycy's brother - was published in the Munich press and presented to the public in Vienna and Lvov.

In 1877, Gottlieb painted a portrait of Laura Rosenfeld, also known as 'Portrait of a Fiancée'. The model is depicted frontally, in a half pose against a dark background contrasting with a well-lit face with a fair complexion. A black-haired, young, pretty girl looks directly at the viewer from the painting, but the strength of the gaze of the dark eyes and expressive eyebrows is somewhat intimidating. The whole figure exudes subtlety and superiority at the same time, reminiscent of old portraits of ladies or rulers.

The artist immortalised his bride in a dress reminiscent of a Renaissance gown and wearing a light-coloured blouse with a high collar covering her neck like an orifice. On her chest is a gold ornament with a medallion.

The year 1877 was a year of intense creative work, rewarded by another success with Laura's face. The painting of Uriel Acosta and Judith von Straaten, a pair of lovers from Karl Gutzkow's drama, gains recognition and publicity. Judith has the features of a bride.

In the painter's paintings, the lovers last forever, like 'Sigismund Augustus and Barbara Gajanka'; in reality, Gottlieb's fiancé did not last long; already in the late summer of 1877, Laura broke off contact with Maurice, investing her feelings and future in a safer candidate, the Berlin banker Leo Henschel. With a broken heart, the sensitive artist threw himself into his work.

Maurycy Gottlieb as a portraitist

Many excellent portraits by Gottlieb's brush have survived, but he himself, educated in the spirit of 19th-century academism, and enamoured of Matejko, dreamed of creating and immortalising great historical subjects on canvas. He treated portraits more as a source of income and did not value them highly, but it was in this genre that his talent manifested itself most fully.

He was interested in the human being. He created intimate, atmospheric images containing a palpable charge of emotion, which - as a sensitive observer - he knew how to capture and immortalise. He did this in a similar way to Rembrandt, whose works he studied in Munich. The Dutch master's influence can also be seen in the way the figures are lit, the orientalising scenery and the thematic proximity - motifs from the Jewish tradition ("Jewish Wedding", "Torah Writer").

The female portraits are subtle, lyrical studies of beauty and mystery, somewhat concealing emotions, as can be seen in the portrait of Laura or the artist's sister, Anna. The male images are characterised by an in-depth psychological analysis, with a greater degree of realism, using a minimum of visual means, as in the masterful portrait of Ignacy Kuranda.

Maurycy Gottlieb author of religious paintings

At the turn of 1877/1878, Gottlieb began working on monumental works depicting scenes from the life of Christ, a figure who was the link between Jewish and Christian religion and tradition. The works produced at the time were: "Christ before the Judgement" and "Christ teaching in Capernaum", both of which, however, he did not manage to complete.

The most eloquent work from his final period was a depiction of Jews praying during the Yom Kippur festival - the Day of Atonement - where he included a double portrait of his former fiancée and his self-portrait, next to a rabbi holding the Torah. The inscription on her cloth covering reads: "Sacrifice for the salvation of the soul of Maurice Gottlieb, of blessed memory".

Was the painting a prediction of the end of the artist's life? He himself described in his diary that he painted this painting in a special state of mind, feeling the presence of deceased loved ones.

The death of Maurice Gottlieb and the memory of him

The words from the painting became reality unexpectedly quickly. On 17 July 1879, Maurycy Gottlieb died in the morning in Krakow's St Lazarus Hospital, as a result of complications from acute tonsillitis, at the age of just 23. Romantic legend has it that the cause of death due to a summer cold was sought in despair at the news of Laura's wedding two weeks earlier. In her memoirs, the portrayed herself linked the painter's death to the painful breaking of her engagement. Whether this was the case will forever remain the artist's secret.

"The sad rite" ended with "a rain of thunder," Matejko, who was present at his pupil's funeral, wrote in a letter to his wife. "It is a pity for him, he was, apart from his extraordinary abilities, a man full of noble drives, a nature endearing in its goodness and disinterestedness to all who knew him closely." Maurycy Gottlieb was buried in the Jewish cemetery on Miodowa Street in Kraków.

Laura Henschel-Rosenfeld outlived the painter by 65 years. She devoted herself to the upbringing of her four daughters, to writing, education and social activism, and was active in the feminist and human rights movements. She died probably on her way to Auschwitz, in April 1944. Laura's granddaughter, Bat Sheva Scheflan (1910-2007), together with her aunt, donated a portrait of Maurycy Gottlieb's fiancée to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1955.