At seventy-one, Countess Sofija Tiškevičienė — seventeen years a widow since her husband Juozapas's death (exhibit No. 41) — sat for a portrait at Henri Gaudichon's photography studio in the fashionable resort town of Cannes, on the French Riviera, in 1908. The photograph is held at the Kretinga Museum (inv. no. KM IF 6840).
Sofija Horvataitė-Tiškevičienė (Polish: Zofia Horwatt-Tyszkiewicz, 1837–1919) was the daughter of Aleksandras Horvatas and Klotilda Volodkavičiūtė, and lady of the Darbėnai and Grūšlaukė estates. We see her as a young bride, freshly married to Juozapas Tiškevičius, in exhibit No. 51; here, nearly fifty years on, she is the family matriarch, having outlived her husband (d. 1891) and seen all eight of her surviving children start families of their own (exhibit No. 39). She died on 24 November 1919 in Palanga and is buried in the Tiškevičius family chapel at Kretinga's second cemetery.
The animation brings a single moment to life: the reserved gravity of a formal portrait gently gives way — the corners of her mouth lift, and her gaze warms into an almost mischievous smile.