A half-length portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, shown in profile facing left. The figure is set against a dark, neutral background. The composition focuses attention on the sitter’s physiognomy: the high forehead, distinctive profile of the nose, pronounced cheekbone, narrow lips and grey hair combed back.

Kościuszko is shown in dark civilian dress, with a high collar and a white neckcloth tied at the throat. The modelling is soft and based on chiaroscuro, subordinated to a disciplined Classicist treatment of form. The face emerges from the dark background through light falling from the left. The palette is restrained: a brownish background, dark clothing, warm flesh tones and cool, silvery passages in the hair.

This is a late portrait, created after the insurrection, Kościuszko’s Russian captivity and his period of exile, when he had become not only a participant in history but also its symbol. Peszka avoids gestural pathos. Instead, he creates a contemplative and subdued image, close to the formula of a “portrait of authority”. The absence of a uniform, weapons and signs of heroic narrative shifts the meaning of the representation away from the iconography of the military leader and towards the portrait of a citizen, a moral authority and a historical figure in later life.