Стефан Баторий под Псковом

Jan Matejko painted this in 1872, at a time when Poland did not exist on the map, carved up between Russia, Prussia and Austria. So he reached back nearly 300 years for a moment of Polish strength: the year 1581, when King Stephen Bathory had campaigned deep into Russian territory during a long war with Ivan the Terrible, and here receives kneeling envoys outside the walls of Pskov. The tent, the furs, the papal legate in black all glow with pageantry. It is more triumph than the facts allow, since the siege of Pskov actually ground to a halt and never took the city. Matejko showed the finished picture in Prague, and it won him medals and academy memberships across Europe.