Matejko. Malerei

Jan Matejko is considered one of the most significant Polish painters and received numerous awards and honors. He was a member of various artists' societies, academies, and scientific institutions. In 1878, he was presented with a scepter by the Kraków community on behalf of the entire nation – a symbol of artistic superiority. Both his grand historical visions and his small-scale historical illustrations generated great interest and shaped the imagination and historical consciousness of the Polish people. Matejko is the author of over 300 paintings and 3,000 drawings.

The works collected in the album allow us to trace the development of the painter's oeuvre from his earliest works painted at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts (Portrait of Franciszek Matejko with Three Children, Stańczyk Pretending to Have a Toothache, View from the Town Hall Tower of the Market Square and St. Mary's Church in Kraków), through his youthful paintings created during or shortly after his studies at the academies in Munich and Vienna (Study of the Head of an Old Man, The Poisoning of Queen Bona, Portraits of Maria and Paris Maurizio), to the creations of a mature artist: brilliant portraits of family members, the Galician intelligentsia, and aristocracy (Portraits of Leonardo Serafiński, Łukasz Dobrzański, Piotr Moszyński, Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz) and grand historical visions (The Prussian Tribute, Wernyhora, Kościuszko in Racławice).