Spearmen; verso, on canvas: sketch of a standing male figure

The double-sided nature of this 1890 canvas — spearmen on one side, a male figure sketch on the other — offers a rare glimpse into Fałat's working process. The verso sketch is almost certainly a preparatory study or spontaneous record, suggesting the canvas was repurposed rather than both sides conceived simultaneously as finished compositions. The spearmen subject is less typical of Fałat's usual hunting and landscape repertoire, indicating an engagement with historical or ethnographic themes that occasionally surfaced in his work alongside his better-known sporting subjects. By 1890 he had completed his Asian travels and was processing a wealth of observed material from Russia, Siberia, and Japan — spearmen could reference any number of Eastern warrior traditions encountered on these journeys. Both faces of the canvas now held by the National Museum in Warsaw provide valuable documentation of the creative process behind Fałat's more polished finished works.

Oil on canvas allows Fałat the rich chromatic range typical of his mature technique. The double-sided format — with a finished composition and a working sketch — reveals the distinction between studied observation and rapid documentary impulse characteristic of his artistic practice.