Twardowski invoquant l'esprit de Barbara pour Sigismond II Auguste, esquisse

This is Matejko working up an old Polish legend. In the story, King Sigismund Augustus is destroyed by grief after the sudden death of his wife, Barbara Radziwill, and begs to see her once more. A sorcerer named Twardowski, Poland's own version of the Faust legend and a man said to have sold his soul to the devil, summons her spirit in a mirror by candlelight. Matejko painted this dark, candlelit version in 1884 as a study, a trial run for a larger picture he never actually carried out, so the sketch is as far as the idea ever got. The king leans toward the glass to catch the shape of the queen he had lost.