Das Aufhängen der Sigismundglocke am Turm der Kathedrale zu Krakau 1521

The title says hanging, but the moment Matejko chose is earlier and stranger, the great Sigismund bell rising fresh out of the mould it was cast in, in Kraków in 1521. He painted it in 1874, when Poland did not exist as a state, partitioned between three empires, and Matejko made a career out of putting national memory on enormous canvases like this. He wanted it exact, so he had craftsmen build a replica of the scaffolding and worked out where the casting pit had stood. On the left he sets the royal court, King Sigismund, Queen Bona Sforza, and off to the side the court jester Stańczyk, a figure Matejko painted again and again as the one clear-eyed man in the room. The real bell still hangs in the cathedral tower and is rung only on the greatest national occasions.