The figure of the kneeling angel is one of Maria Lednicka-Szczytt's most enigmatic works. To this day, its unusual sculptural form, mysterious gesture and facial expression continue to fascinate. The history of the sculpture is also linked to unusual characters; from the artist herself, to an unruly collector of modern art, to an ambitious director of an Italian bank.

Maria Lednicka-Szczytt - the beginnings of her work
Black Angel was first presented to the public in Paris, at the Autumn Salon in 1922. Maria Lednicka-Szczytt had made her debut at the event two years earlier as one of the pupils of the famous sculptor Émile Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929).

As with many other female artists, her educational path in the French master's studio was not an easy one. Maria was born in Moscow, to the family of lawyer, political and social activist Alexander Lednitsky (1866-1934). She managed to win entry to study with Bourdelle in 1913, soon interrupted by the First World War. The determined artist continued her studies in Moscow. In order to return to Paris in 1919, she had to liberate herself from the social role and ties imposed on her by her family and her terminated marriage to Wladyslaw Nemirovich-Shacht (divorced around 1923).

In the French capital, Maria became known as an efficient organiser, among other things. She is credited with a key role in preparing the exhibition La Jeune Pologne at the Musée Crillon (1922). It was most likely at this exhibition that Riccardo Gualino (1879-1964), the aforementioned Italian collector and entrepreneur, decided to purchase the Black Angel directly from the artist.

Maria Lednicka-Szczytt in Milan
Riccardo Gualino was known in the early 1920s as an industrial and commercial magnate who was involved in intellectual and artistic life and systematically built up a collection of contemporary art, eagerly buying the then controversial works by Monet or Modigliani. The Black Angel, brought from Paris to northern Italy, was to adorn the foyer of the Gualino theatre in Turin.

In 1924, the sculpture was followed to Milan by its creator to hold her exhibition at the Galeria di Pasiero, to familiarise herself with Italian art and to complete her first commissions. It is now difficult to establish how she obtained them - whether through Gualino's influence, through her father, who was active in Polish-Italian organisations, or through her acquaintance with the Toeplitz family living near Milan at the time. Giuseppe (Jozef) Toeplitz (1866-1938) was a banker of Polish-Jewish origin who had a stunning career in Italy, expanding the structure of the Banca Commerciale Italiana. His wife, Jadwiga Mrozowska-Toeplitz, was a successful actress in Poland. On the other hand, after her marriage to Jozef, she concentrated on exotic travel and building relationships with contemporary Italian artists and business representatives. At their residence in Varese (Lombardy), Maria Lednicka-Szczytt spent much of her time when illness prevented her from working as an artist.

The individual, economical style used by the artist appealed to the tastes of the elite of the time. Maria produced many portraits of representatives of the Italian aristocracy, politics, business and the art world. The Black Angel and other of her sculptures were shown, among others, in 1926 at the Bottega di Poesia gallery in Milan, in 1928 in Paris, where the artist sat on the jury of the Autumn Salon, and in 1931 at the International Exhibition of Religious Art in Padua, where the sculpture was awarded a gold medal. Lednicka-Szczytt was successful as an independent artist as well as collaborating with architects and interior designers such as: Adrianna Gorska (Adrienne Gorska de Montaut, 1899-1969, sister of Tamara Lempicka) and Giuseppe De Finetti (1892-1952).

Fascist Italy and the Great Depression - changes in the life of the artist
In the wake of Mussolini and the Fascist party's seizure of power in Italy, many intellectuals and representatives of the elite found themselves in trouble. Riccardo Gualino, who openly opposed the fascist regime, was imprisoned. His financial empire left unmanaged during the Great Depression turned into ruin. Among other things, Gualino was in debt to the bank that Toeplitz headed. As compensation for its financial obligations, the institution took over the former magnate's art collection. Perhaps this fact was the direct inspiration for the creation and building up of the Banca Commerciale Italiana art collection, for which the banker and patron of the arts, Raffael Mattioli (1895-1973), is considered the 'father'. Be that as it may, Black Angel has remained in this ever-expanding collection to this day, as the only work by a Polish artist. The Great Depression also took its toll on financial institutions. For this reason or because of his 'undesirable' background, Giuseppe Toeplitz was openly attacked and forced to resign from his position.

It might have seemed that the political climate and the events described above left no impact on Maria Lednicka-Szczytt's career. The sculptor was engaged to develop decorations for Italian transatlantic ships. For one of them she made a bust of Princess Maria Piedmont and for another... a portrait of Benito Mussolini! The apparent artistic freedom and state patronage in the field of art apparently did not quite suit the artist, who decided to move to the United States in 1933.

New York - great hopes and the death of the sculptor
The New Continent received Maria Lednicka-Szczytt very warmly - the number of commissions and exhibition proposals suggested that the artist's good fortune would be long-lasting. Unfortunately, the suicidal death of her father Alexander (1934), resulting from the political campaign, meant that Maria could no longer regain her inner peace. The American art market demanded very intensive work and commitment from the sculptor. The commissions acquired were mainly for devotional art, and the conservative expectations of the funders did not leave much room for the formal experiments so characteristic of Lednicka-Szczytt. Overwhelmed by financial difficulties and a sense of isolation, the artist committed suicide in New York in 1947.

Rome - the mystery of the Black Angel
The artist's work also fell into obscurity for a time. The black angel in the bank's collection became an anonymous work and acquired a new title: Donna alata ( Kneeling woman ). Although the sculpture bears the signature 'Lednicka', it was unexpectedly attributed to the much more popular Tamara Lempicka and was hailed as an artistic sensation. It was not until provenance research by Italian experts that the work was restored to Maria Lednicka-Szczytt.

The sculpture occupies an important place in the artist's oeuvre, as one of her freest expressions. Researchers emphasise that religious subjects, unlike idealised portraits made to order, were a pretext for Maria to express her own artistic assumptions and use different sculptural techniques.

The Black Angel 's restrained form, approaching abstraction, bears the hallmarks of a fascination with non-European cultures. The Italian sculptor's contemporaries saw in it the hieratic figures typical of ancient Egyptian art combined with inspirations drawn from medieval sculptures. The small scale of the sculpture makes the angel figure appear close, but at the same time lacks a 'human' naturalness.

As one of the researchers, Magdalena Kasa, notes, the religious figures and angels sculpted by Lednicka-Szczytt escape the typical patterns for these subjects: they have no gender, and the way they are depicted cannot be unambiguously linked to a specific religion or religious trend. It is also difficult to unambiguously interpret the gesture they make: whether their raised hands are about to fold in prayer, cover their eyes, or are an interpretation of the figure of the orant. The angel - a non-material entity fixed in blackened wood - smiles enigmatically like the Mona Lisa .