Portrait of Eliza Krasińska

Eliza Krasińska was the wife of the Polish Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasiński, and Scheffer's 1849 portrait of her is one of a pair with the poet's own portrait, both now in the National Museum in Warsaw. Krasiński was one of the three great Polish Romantic bards alongside Mickiewicz and Słowacki, and his connection to Scheffer was mediated through the dense network of Polish exiles in Paris. The year 1849 placed this commission immediately after the failed revolutions of 1848, a moment of renewed despair for the Polish cause. Scheffer, who shared the liberal hopes crushed by those events, would have painted Eliza with an awareness of the political tragedy surrounding her husband's poetry. The portrait's presence in Warsaw rather than Paris suggests it was either sent directly to Poland or repatriated after the Second World War from collections displaced by conflict.

As a companion portrait to her husband's likeness, the painting would have been designed to harmonise in size, format, and palette. Scheffer's female portraits of this period tend to be slightly warmer and more softly lit than his male subjects, with careful attention to the textures of dress fabric and the delicacy of jewellery, if present. The emotional register is typically composed and inward rather than assertive.