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Gottlieb, Maurycy [Moritz] (Moses)
(b Drohobycz, Galicia, 21/28 Feb 1856; d Kraków, 17 July 1879). Polish painter. He was the elder brother of the painters Filip Gottlieb (b c. 1870), Marceli Gottlieb, Marcin Gottlieb (1867–1936) and Leopold Gottlieb (1879/83–1934). He came from a wealthy, orthodox Jewish family and his artistic talent manifested itself very early in his life. From 1869 he studied drawing with Michal Goldewski the elder (1799–1875), an amateur painter in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). In October 1871 he travelled to Vienna, where in 1872 he studied under Karl Mayer (1810–76), and subsequently under Karl von Blaas at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. In 1873–4 he studied with Jan Matejko at the School of Fine Arts, Kraków, but soon returned to Vienna to study historical composition under Carl Wurzinger (1817–83). He painted a number of works in Kraków, partly completing them in Vienna in 1875. These include a Self-portrait in the magnificent costume of a Polish nobleman (ex–J. Felsen priv. col., Vienna, see Rogoyska, p. 5) as well as unsuccessful historical compositions, for example the Investiture of Albert of Brandenburg by Sigismund I (Kraków, L. Reich priv. col.). In 1875 he left Vienna, staying briefly in Kraków and Drohobycz; towards the end of the year, with a letter of recommendation from Jan Matejko, he studied under Karl von Piloty at the Munich Akademie der Bildenden Künste. In Munich he painted one of his most outstanding early works, Shylock and Jessica (Warsaw, Zofia Tabecka priv. col., see Rogoyska, p. 9), after Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. This painting was highly praised both in Poland and abroad, and brought fame to the young artist. Filip Gottlieb (in 1886) and Marcin Gottlieb (in 1887) both produced copies of the painting. In 1875 Gottlieb also painted a Self-portrait as Ahasuerus (Kraków, N. Mus.). In 1876 he was again in Drohobycz, where he made a number of sketches for his Jewish Wedding-feast. At the end of 1876 he returned to Vienna, to study under Heinrich von Angeli in the Akademie. Through this teacher he came under the influence of Hans Makart, as may be seen in his lyrical costume-composition of 1877, Uriel and Judith (ex-Hipolit Wawelberg priv. col., Warsaw; ?Mexico City, Holzer priv. col., see 1991 exh. cat., no. 15), after Karl Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta. The Self-portrait in Arab Costume (ex-Governor Hurka priv. col.; ?destr.), copied by his brother Marcin (Warsaw, Jew. Hist. Inst., see 1991 exh. cat., no. 7), belongs to this period, as do the Shulamite Woman (Bytom, Mus. Upper Silesia) and the Slave-girls’ Market in Cairo (?New York, priv. col., see 1991 exh. cat., no. 33), copied by his brother Filip, and a number of portraits of men, women and children. In 1878 Gottlieb painted the portrait of Ignacy Kuranda (Kraków, N. Mus.), leader of the Jewish community in Vienna, and in the same year he travelled to St Petersburg and Munich in order to work on illustrations for Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, commissioned by the publisher Bruckmann. Here he painted the religious composition Jews Praying on the Day of Atonement (Tel Aviv, Mus. A.). In the second half of 1878 he left Munich and, with a grant from the Fanni Jejtteles Foundation, travelled to Italy. There he met Matejko, and, at his prompting, he returned to the School of Fine Arts in Kraków to study composition. In Kraków in 1879 he painted a striking portrait of a Jewish Woman (Warsaw, N. Mus.), and he also worked on the painting Christ Preaching at Capharnum (Warsaw, N. Mus.), which he never finished. In his early youth Gottlieb had had little contact with Polish society, but later on he was torn between his attachment to the Jewish people and his Polish patriotism.
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