Brief Biography-Ignacy Aleksander Gierymski was born in Warsaw in 1850. In 1867, he studied drawing in Warsaw, and from 1868 to 1872, he went to the Munich Academy of Fine arts and received a gold medal. During these years, he also entered Franz Adam’s studio with his older brother Maximillian. After some time in Austria, he went to Rome in 1873, where he painted his first significant works well received in Warsaw. He painted scenes of poverty; however, Polish society did not fully appreciate his paintings. In 1888, he visited Germany and France. In Germany, he toured the Bavarian Alps and the Tyrol region. In Paris, he influenced the impressionists, and he regularly painted landscapes. He returned to Warsaw in 1893 and painted a Peasant’s Coffin with the hope of entering the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts, to no avail; he then moved to Italy. There Ignacy spent his last years suffering from mental illness and unfortunately died in a psychiatric hospital in Rome in 1901.