page_title: Wilhelm Kotarbiński
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Wilhelm Kotarbiński / Early life and education
context_page_description: Wilhelm Kotarbiński born 30 November 1848, Nieborów; died 4 September 1921, Kiev) was a Polish symbolist painter of historical and fantastical subjects, who spent most of his life in Kiev and the Russian Empire.
context_section_description: His father was an impoverished Polish nobleman who served as a manager for the Radziwiłł estates. 
  He began his studies with Rafał Hadziewicz at the Warsaw School of Art from 1867 to 1871. Afterward, he enrolled at the University of Warsaw, urged on by his parents who were opposed to an artistic career, but stayed for only a short time before borrowing money from his uncle and moving to Italy. The following year, he was able to arrange a stipend from the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and enrolled at the Accademia di San Luca, where he studied with Francesco Podesti until 1875, living in poverty and barely surviving a case of typhoid.
caption: Two Roman Women (1870s)
exif: {}