Print from steel engraving titled „Les Polonais a Milan. Le general Jean Henri Dombrowski, donnant lecture de sa proclamation aux Polonais le 20 Janvier 1797 devant les premiers soldats de la legion polonaise d‘Italie, reunis sur place du Dome de Milan“.

Drawn by Elie Tremo.

Engraved by W. A. Le Petit.

From the Leonard Chodzko book „Pologne“ published in 1835 – 1838 in Paris.

Notes: [De la Collection de Leonard Chodzko].

Leonard Borejko Chodźko (1800–71) was a Polish historian, geographer, cartographer, publisher, archivist, and activist of Poland's post-November-1830-Uprising Great Emigration. Chodźko was educated at the University of Vilnius, where he was a member of the Philomaths, a secret organization established in 1816 by Vilnius University students including Adam Mickiewicz, Tomasz Zan and Józef Jeżowski. From 1826 he lived in Paris. During France's July 1830 Revolution, he served as aide-de-camp to General La Fayette.

“The general Jean Henri Dombrowski, reading out of his proclamation to the Poles in January 20, 1797 before the first soldiers of the Polish Legion of Italy, reunited on-site Dome of Milan.”

Jan Henryk Dąbrowski was a Polish general, widely respected after his death for his patriotic attitude, and described as a national hero. Dąbrowski initially served in the Saxon Army and joined the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Army in 1792, shortly before the Second Partition of Poland. He was promoted to the rank of general in the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794. After the final Third Partition of Poland, which ended the existence of Poland as independent country, he became actively involved in promoting the cause of Polish independence abroad. He was the founder of the Polish Legions in Italy serving under Napoleon since 1797, and as a general in Italian and French service he contributed to the brief restoration of the Polish state during the Greater Poland Uprising of 1806. He participated in Napoleonic Wars, taking part in the Polish-Austrian war and the French invasion of Russia until 1813. After Napoleon's defeat, he accepted a senatorial position in the Russian-backed Congress Poland, and was one of the organizers of the Army of Congress Poland.The Polish national anthem, Poland Is Not Yet Lost, written and first sung by the Polish legionnaires, mentions Dąbrowski by name, and is also known as Dąbrowski's Mazurka.

Approx. image size 16 x 9, 6/28, 1 x 18, 5 cm. Condition: medium.