Battle of Grunwald

Matejko spent six years on this and finished it in 1878, at a time when Poland did not exist on the map. It had been carved up between its neighbours, and paintings like this were a way of keeping the nation alive in people's minds. He reaches back to 1410 and the great victory over the Teutonic Knights, the crusading order that had pressed on Poland and Lithuania for generations. Near the centre you can find the Grand Master of the order, Ulrich von Jungingen, at the moment of his death in the fighting. The painting's own story turned dangerous later. When Nazi Germany occupied Poland it went on a list of works marked for destruction, with a huge reward offered for it. Poles hid the enormous canvas and kept it from being found through the whole war.