Rare Polish Cabinet Photo - Atelier A. Gancwol Siedlce ca. 1900 Judaica Poland

Rare Polish Cabinet Photo - Atelier A. Gancwol Siedlce ca. 1900 Judaica Poland

10,5 cn x 6,4 cm

Adolf Ganiewski (known as Gancwol) was a Jewish photographer from Siedlce. He and his family perished in the Holocaust during WWII (Treblinka, 1942). Today his surviving works are regarded as significant Judaica and rare documentation of Polish-Jewish life and history.

?? Extremely rarely do Gancwol photographs appear for sale on the open market. Most of his surviving negatives and prints are preserved in museums (e.g., Regional Museum in Siedlce). This makes original cabinet photos like the present one exceptionally hard to find.

The surname on the dedication, Sawicki, may suggest a possible connection to Aleksander Sawicki (1866–1927), officer of the Imperial Russian Army and later Colonel in the Polish Army, who served as commandant of the Military Draft Office (PKU) in Siedlce. While this identification cannot be fully confirmed, the military and regional context makes this photograph especially interesting for collectors of Polish history, Judaica, and militaria.