Wernyhora

When Matejko painted this in 1884, Poland had not existed on the map for nearly 90 years, carved up among Russia, Prussia and Austria. Krakow, where he worked, sat inside the Austrian share. Wernyhora was a half-legendary Ukrainian bard said to have lived in the 18th century, remembered for prophecies that Poland would fall and then one day rise again. Matejko shows the old seer mid-vision, held upright as he dictates the future to a nobleman who writes it down, a hurdy-gurdy resting at his feet. For a people with no country of their own, a canvas nearly three metres wide showing a prophecy of national rebirth was a kind of promise. Poland would not exist again as a state until 1918, 34 years after he finished it.