O Alquimista Sędziwój

When Matejko painted this in 1867, there was no Polish state on the map. The country had been carved up among Russia, Prussia and Austria, and an uprising against Russian rule had just been crushed in 1863. Matejko spent his life painting scenes from Poland's past so that a nation without borders still had its history in front of it. Here he stages a real figure, the chemist Michal Sedziwoj, kneeling at the royal court on Wawel hill in Krakow and holding up a coin he claims to have turned into gold, while King Sigismund the Third watches, half believing. Firelight from the furnace does most of the work, throwing the alchemist's face and hands forward and leaving the courtiers behind him in shadow.