Jadwiga Maria Kinga Bal of Zaleszczyki, née Brunicka was a Polish baroness and a lifelong muse of Jacek Malczewski, considered Poland"s national painter.
Background
Jadwiga Maria Brunicka (called Maria) was born during the foreign partitions of Poland to baron Seweryn Brunicki, a Polish land-owner, and his wife Jadwiga Maria Kryspina Zagórska, (see the Ostoja coat of arms) at their country estate in Zaleszczyki (now Zalischyky, western Ukraine). A descendant of a Jewish family from Bavaria, her father carried the title of baron received in 1813.
Career
She served as the live model for a series of his symbolic portrayals of women, as well as nude studies and mythological beings. The family owned a tenement house in the metropolitan city of Krakow at ul. Pierackiego 7, where Maria later was a frequent visitor.
Maria was noted as being exceptionally beautiful by her family.
They called her Kinga from the time she was a girl. As was typical of wealthy families, she was educated at home by a tutor.
They had a tumultuous affair that lasted until World War I. She posed for many of his symbolic paintings from the Pythia series painted at the cusp of Poland"s return to independence (before the end of the war). These works included his numerous self-portraits with muses.
Malczewski was a married manitoba
He had a son, Rafał born in 1892, who also became a painter later on. Maria Bal was a star of the local literary society in KrakóWest She was also a regular at the gatherings of artists held at the Krakow mansion of Olga Chwistkowa.
Maria is one of the most revered art models in Poland.
She died on January 3, 1955 in Krakow at the age of 75. A black dress of hers, from the 1930s, is on display at the Department of Fashion in the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź.