L'Introduction du christianisme en Pologne

When Jan Matejko painted this in 1889, Poland did not exist on any map. It had been partitioned between three empires for nearly a century, and Matejko had spent his career painting the nation's past as a way of keeping it present. Near the end of his life he made a cycle of 12 scenes he called the History of Civilization in Poland, and this one opens the series: the moment in 966 when the ruler Mieszko the First accepted Christian baptism and pulled his people into Latin Europe. A toppled pagan idol lies among the figures while a bishop raises the cross. Matejko wrote his own commentary for each scene, partly to earn an honorary doctorate from the university in Krakow.