Lazarus' Resurrection

1867 was the year Jan Matejko became known outside Poland. His huge Rejtan went to the world's fair in Paris and took a gold medal, and the Polish public argued about it for months. In the same year he finished something far more private, a painting of the raising of Lazarus for the parish church at Nowy Wisnicz, a small town east of Krakow. His brother-in-law, the priest Stanislaw Giebultowski, had died in April 1866, and the loss shaped the choice of subject. Lazarus, climbing out of the tomb, has the dead priest's face. Lazarus's sister Mary carries the features of Matejko's own sister, Maria Waleria. Several of the onlookers were modelled on people from the town, and one head resembles the painter. Along the lower edge he wrote a dedication to the memory of his beloved brother and friend, Father Stanislaw Giebultowski, who died on 13 April 1866.