Thanks to Artur Grottger, Aртур Гроттгер in Ukrainian,a well-known painter,graphic designer, with Polish and German roots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Grottger He was born in Eastern Galicia, Halychyna, near Lviv (Ukraine) to an amateur artist of German background, Jan Józef Grottger, and a Polish mother. Grottger studied painting under the apprenticeships of Jan Kanty Maszkowski and Juliusz Kossak in Lviv. Grottger received an imperial scholarship to attend the Krakow School of Fine Arts, where he studied under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Wojciech Kornel Stattler. Around this time he met one of his biggest future art patrons and benefactors, Aleksander Pappenheim.Grottger painted mostly epic battle scenes. In 1866, the 29-year-old painter came to Lviv from Snyatyn(West Ukraine) where he lived after the end of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and met with a young Polish girl with French roots Wanda Monnaie de La Tour, a charming and intelligent 16-year old niece of the famous Lviv confectioner Michal Monnet , and fell in love at first sight. Wanda was hot patriot, so to start the uprising became a nurse, bandaging the wounds of Polish patriots. Image of the beloved girl is present in all of his paintings. Wanda's parents embarrassed not so much age difference and not even his illness, but his poverty. And then Arthur went to improve his financial situation. In winter Paris, in the full need, between acute attacks of tuberculosis, he found the strength to creative. The immigrants from Poland acquainted Grottger with academician Jean - LeonJérôme. Thanks to him the Emperor of Austria-Hungary Franz Iosif bought Artur's collection. The doctor sent him for treatment to the south of France in the resort town of Amiens-les-Bains. But the favorable climate did not help Arthur, 13 December 1867 he died at the hands of monks in the Monastery of Bernardine. After learning about this tragic news, Wanda was dressed in mourning, took off and sold all her jewels in order to fulfill the last wishes of her fiancé dead. One day, walking with Wanda on Lychakiv, Arthur asked her if he died to bury him here. But for the delivery of the remains of the artist with the Pyrenees to Lviv was requested a lot of money . Then she begged her parents and in tears on her knees. Then Wanda with family with his brother Oles' and friends left to take the body of Arthur. In 1868, the remains of Arthur Grottger are moved to Lviv and reburied with full honors at Lychakivsky cemetery. Later on his grave there was a magnificent monument in the form of inconsolable girl (Wanda)who made him a friend - París sculptor Philip, who did not dare to take money from Wanda.On the pedestal is an oval medallion with a profile Grottger - this work was made by Wanda, for this purpose she learned to comprehend the art of stone carving. Four years later, the bride of Grottger Wanda Monnet married. Painter, dying, asked Wanda not to stay alone. He blessed her to marry his close friend and colleague - an artist Carol Mlodnitsky, with whom Arthur was in Munich ------------ Halyna Myroslava "Іnsuperable Distance" Галина Мирослава "Непоборна відстань"