pen, ink, lavage ink, gouache, paper glued on cardboard
18.5 × 14 cm light frame
signed and dated p. d.: "JM/884"
on the back a sticker from an exhibition at the Museum of the History of Katowice, 2005
Exhibited:
- Private collection from Poznan. Polish Painting. European Porcelain Museum of the History of Katowice, March - May 2005.
- From Renoir to Chagall. 100 years of painting, Gallery Manes, Prague July 8 - September 2, 2025
Reproduced:
- "Private Collection from Poznan. Polish Painting. European Porcelain," exhibition catalog, Katowice 2005, p. 63, cat. no. 121, no. il. 109.
- M.Ottavi, A.Mrowiec, From Renoir to Chagall. 100 years of painting [exhibition catalog],Prague 2025, item in cat. 39, p.70.
Jan Matejko is undoubtedly the most famous painter in the history of Poland. During the period of the Partitions of Poland, he depicted on his canvas pages the key moments of nearly a thousand years of Polish history. In doing so, he did not shy away from bold solutions - he often reached for innovative means of expression, combining themes, characters and motifs in a way that departed from traditional conventions. "It is noteworthy that ideas in Matejko's work were never born at once, in an integral concept. First there is a thought, a creative intention and the most general vague idea of a scene. At this stage, the artist would let go of the free reins of his imagination, stop reading books, pertaining to the subject, and deliberately read other books, of completely different content, in order to get away from the original concept. Later, only after the artist had digested in his mind and imagination what he knew about the subject and saw with his soul's eyes, came the turn for a sketch, sometimes a whole series of sketches, where heads and figures were marked, sometimes even with a certain expression, but only in general terms. On the basis of the idea Matejko had formed of a certain historical personage, he then looked for a suitable model among the living people of his surroundings; this model was to be used to paint a living, individualized, real person, to render the shape of the head and face in detail. Simply put, Matejko imposed on his model and here, to an even higher degree than in portraits, the expression and character he chose. This is how literally materialized visions of various historical figures were created. That is why they are all alive, concrete; they are not souls made of paper - they are flesh and blood people. Hence, too, the compelling force with which Matejko imposes on us the belief in their real existence, so that today probably none of us can imagine the heroes of ancient Poland any other way than through the prism of his unforgettable works."
(Mieczyslaw Treter, "Matejko personality of the artist, creativity, form, style," Lviv 1939, pp. 483-485.)
Matejko repeatedly depicted Sigismund I the Old - King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania of the Jagiellonian dynasty - as a majestic, wise and dignified ruler. His figure appears in several paintings, and Matejko took great care with symbolism and detail to convey the character of this figure and era. The figure of the monarch appears in the artist's most famous paintings, including "The Prussian Homage" (1879-1882), "The Hanging of the Sigismund Bell" (1874) "Sigismund I Grants Nobility to Professors of the Jagiellonian University" (1858) or in a drawing from the series Poczt Królów i książąt polskich (1890-1892).
