-
“I finally got to meet Piłsudski today.
-
He was exceptionally courteous
and good-humoured,
-
he seems very happy
about the fact I am painting him
-
and swore to sit
for as long as need be.
-
The aforementioned session
on Independence Day
-
is documented by photographs
of Piłsudski on horseback,
-
in the company of the painter, in the
park next to Belweder Palace.
-
The Marshal is shown on his favourite
mare Kasztanka – Chestnut –
-
which accompanied him in 1914,
-
also during the military
operations of the First Brigade.
-
Owing to her age,
the distinguished mare
-
did not participate in
the Polish-Soviet war.
-
Piłsudski last mounted her
on 11th November 1927,
-
when he received a parade
on Saski Square in Warsaw.
-
“Chestnut was very irritable,
-
she hated artillery fire and
acknowledged no-one but her master”,
-
recalled the Marshal’s wife,
Aleksandra Piłsudska.
