Leopold Loeffler

Who was Leopold Loeffler?

Leopold Loeffler, also spelled Löffler, was a Polish realist painter of the late Romantic period popular in the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland. Lithographic reproductions of his paintings were widely distributed among the members of the Kraków and Warsaw art societies, and frequently reprinted in popular periodicals owing to their historical references to Polish national uprisings and battlefronts, as well as their great attention to period detail.

A member of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts since 1866 and at the height of his artistic career, Leoffler was invited to Kraków by Polish national painter Jan Matejko in 1877. There he accepted a position as professor at the expanding School of Fine Arts, but nevertheless remained a prolific artist for the rest of his life. Loeffler died in Kraków in 1898. His work can be found in the National Museum of Poland, its regional branches and in the Lviv National Art Gallery