Emigracya do Ameryki (Emigration to America), Joseph Vincent Kruszewski; Lithography: M. Salba; Cracow: Fr. Ryszard Werner [1888]

8 illustrated lithographic prints plus illustrated title (12 ½ x 19 ¼  in.; 320 x 490 mm). Plates in good condition, slight edge wear to title with a single minor tear to left side. Plates matted and mounted in a modern custom folding leather portfolio and housed in a modern cloth-covered slipcase. 

Halyna Hlembotska, Images of a Vanished World: the Jews of Eastern Galicia from the mid-19th century to the first third of the 20th century. L’viv: Centre of Europe Publishing House, 2013.

Joseph Vincent Kruszewski (1853 -1920) was a Polish painter, illustrator and cartoonist. In 1867 he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow where he studied intermittently until 1876. He then traveled to Brussels to study under the noted Belgian orientalist painter, Jean-Francois Portaels.  After returning to Cracow, Kruszewski created numerous watercolors depicting humorous scenes of everyday life, Jewish subjects were a frequent theme.  His paintings featured deliberately exaggerated characters types and satirical sketches of the inhabitants of Cracow. He was a regular contributor to many of Cracow's journals and also illustrated several books.  His works are in museums in Cracow, Warsaw and Lviv.

In 1888 he illustrated and produced this album humorously depicting the mass immigration of Polish citizens to America in the late 19th century. The illustrations poke fun of the efforts of Eastern Europe characters and their attempts to depart for “greener pastures”.  Each of the plates is captioned in Polish, German and Hungarian. The album is very scarce, no copy is recorded in America and only one copy is recorded in the National Library of Poland.