Henryk Siemiradzki

Henryk Siemiradzki gave the nineteenth century some of its most seductive images of the ancient world. His huge 'Nero's Torches' shows Christians tied to stakes in a Roman garden, about to be burned as living lamps for the emperor's guests, the crowd chatting on marble steps in bright sun.

Trained in St Petersburg and settled mostly in Rome, he painted antiquity as sunlit spectacle: idle patricians, marble terraces, dancers by the sea. Audiences across Europe and Russia queued for the big canvases, and he gave 'Nero's Torches' to the city of Kraków to help start its national museum.

Polish and Russian traditions both claim him, since he was born near Kharkiv, trained in Russia and became a hero of Polish art. He is buried in Kraków among national figures.