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Prince Yeremi Vishnovyetski

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With Fire and Sword:
Prince Yeremi Vishnovyetski

January 5th 2017
Ink, gouache, white charcoal
Toned paper
5x7 inches


I’ve been meaning to do portrait drawings of the characters from With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz for a long while now (since it’s one of my favorite books and too few people seem to know about it or have read the books). It took some encouragement from a friend who had also read the books to finally sit down and start sketching them out. Prince Yeremi Vishnovyetski (August 17th, 1612 – August 20th, 1651), also spelled Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, was a great Polish magnate and a very charismatic and successful military leader who fought against the Cossacks during the terrible Hmyelnitzki Uprising (1648—1651) that engulfed and consumed the Ukraine in bitter fighting. He is featured very prominently in the novel and he just so happens to be one of my favorite characters. :D In the book he is described thus:
A stranger seeing Prince Yeremi for the first time would find it hard to reconcile his slight, youthful body and almost girlish features with the towering legend that he had become. Barely into his thirties, the prince had inherited the long, soft black hair and pale skin of his Valachian mother and these gave him a gentle, delicate air that might have seemed effeminate to someone who didn’t know the man. But Skshetuski knew better than to trust appearances, these or any other. Those small-boned features already bore the iron stamp of war and the hard campaigning that had won the man his awesome reputation. The luminous black eyes housed sleeping thunderheads, he knew, and God help him who drew those hidden lightnings on himself! Not even the most experienced diplomats and courtiers could bear to look into those eyes for long; they contained such a natural sense of majesty and power that all heads bowed before him without a second thought. This was a man who knew his own greatness and the full power of his vast resources and he had no mercy for anyone who questioned his authority. If an imperial crown were suddenly thrust upon his head, Pan Jan thought, he’d be neither surprised by it nor crushed by its weight.

Ruthlessness, courage and readiness to shoulder the most terrible responsibilities lived side by side in this strange single-minded man, along with a fierce, overweening pride, impatience with anyone who failed to grasp his own lofty vision, and a passionate devotion to his country and for what it stood…On the other hand, he provided homes and lifelong care for four thousand orphans, built either a cathedral or a temple for every faith and sect in his territory, founded five colleges in which the sons of the tenantry were educated at no cost, and turned his capital of Lubnie into a haven for the homeless and the dispossessed whom he provided with lands, training occupations and protection under his stern justice.

~ from With Fire and Sword, by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by W.S. Kuniczak
Image size
1556x2092px 3.58 MB
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Bruno-Bluthgeld's avatar

Also called "the hammer on cossacks". A worthy depiction of a great prince.