Only until 8 October, the National Museum in Krakow is showing Jan Matejko’s famous painting ‘Rejtan. The Fall of Poland’. Loaned from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the canvas is part of the cross-sectional exhibition “Matejko. Painter and History’.
The famous large-format painting depicts a scene set during the third day of the Partition Sejm, during which Prussia, Russia and Austria partitioned parts of Poland’s territories and annexed them to their own lands. The focal point of the painting is Tadeusz Rejtan, a representative from the Nowogródek region, lying in a desperate pose and opposing the partition of his homeland. The painting was shown at an exhibition in Paris in 1867, where it was awarded a gold medal. Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I purchased it for his collection. In 1918, the government of the independent Republic repurchased the canvas, transferring it to the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
Jan Matejko is one of the most famous painters of Polish history. At the National Museum in Krakow, a cross-sectional exhibition devoted to his work and life features works from the National Museum in Warsaw, the Lviv Art Gallery, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and the Royal Castle in Warsaw, from where the well-known, large-format and extremely impressive painting “Rejtan. The Fall of Poland’ has been loaned for this exhibition.
The exhibition “Matejko. Painter and History” presents the fascinating nature of the Krakow painter’s art, presenting both the aforementioned paintings of the great historical cycle and dozens of works of a smaller format, but significant content (including those from private and foreign collections), as well as sketches and props used in the creative process – in total, more than three hundred works demonstrating the plethora of his achievements. It also recalls Matejko’s social contributions, collecting numerous certificates of gratitude and appreciation addressed to him.
The exhibition, already without the famous painting depicting Rejtan defending his homeland, will run until 7 January 2024.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński