Edward Aleksander Raczyński

Count Edward Aleksander Raczyński (1847–1926) was a Polish nobleman, landowner, patron of the arts, and founder of the Raczyński Art Gallery in Rogalin.

Photograph of Raczyński from the archives of Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny publishing house, founded in 1910 in Kraków by Marian Dąbrowski

Raczyński was an adventurer and world-traveller. After the death of his father in 1864, at the age of 17 he escaped to Turkey with a friend for a few months, got badly wounded in the 1867 Battle of Mentana, then in 1869 went to Chile, then back to France in 1870 to take part in a war, and in 1874 settled in Kraków at the residence of his aunt Katarzyna Potocka.

He became a star of the local society, and was featured in Jan Matejko's Battle of Grunwald (painting) in the lower right-hand section, as the young bearded man with the white bandage on his head wound.