The Departure of Henry the Pious from Legnica

This is a working sketch in oil on paper, one of the first studies for a large painting Jan Matejko had in mind. He made it in 1865, at 27, only a year after the January Uprising against Russian rule had been put down. The subject is a much older defeat. In April 1241 Henry the Pious, Duke of Silesia, rode out of Legnica to face the Mongol army, and he was killed in the battle that followed. The chronicler Jan Długosz, writing more than two centuries later, recorded an omen: as the prince left the town, a stone slid from the roof of the Church of the Virgin Mary and nearly struck his head. Matejko gives Henry no air of victory. Under the tall pointed helmet his face is pale and wide-eyed, and the shield at his side carries the black eagle of Silesia.