WARSAW, Poland—I saw him as soon as I entered The White Hall of Wilanow Palace. On the far side of the room, a confident nobleman casually dressed in a white shirt, a velvet vest, leather trousers, and a blue sash, with a kind face and an open, approachable manner, sat astride his horse. He had a panache I couldn’t ignore. So I walked toward him.
I cherish such moments, for the man I was walking to meet was depicted on a canvas that was 9 feet, 11 5/8 inches by 7 feet, 1 3/4 inches—a portrait of Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, not the man himself. For me, that’s the epitome of great representational art: to feel that you’ve seen the essence of someone you’ve never met before and, in most cases, probably never will.
