The Funeral of the Five Victims

Born into a wealthy family of Warsaw bankers and merchants, Aleksander Lesser studied in Warsaw, Dresden, and Munich. He made his reputation as a painter of Polish historical and Christian religious subjects. In the 1860s, Lesser became one of the first artists to depict scenes from the history of Polish Jewry. He is most known for his painting of a contemporary event: The Funeral of the Five Victims shows a cross section of Polish society (Catholics, Protestants, and Jews) at the funeral for protesters who were shot by police during a patriotic demonstration in Warsaw on March 2, 1861.