MATEJKO Jan - Skarga's Sermon. Text by Tadeusz Jaroszyński. 1913

MATEJKO Jan - Skarga's Sermon. Text by Tadeusz Jaroszyński. Warsaw 1913. Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych w Królestwie Polskiem. Folio, pp. [2], 17, plates 6. broch.
Good condition. Front cover broch. is decorated with floral elements in olive color on a gray background. The plates were printed in heliogravure. "The Sermon of Skarga" is an important painting in the works of the master Jan Matejko. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1864 and won a gold medal, which drew widespread attention to the person of the author, then only 26 years old. The painting was painted just after the collapse of the January Uprising, in which Matejko's two brothers took part. Matejko often gave away his paintings, and if he sold them, he did not demand much for them. Count Maurycy Potocki of Zator paid Matejko a mere 10,000 zlotys for "The Sermon of Skarga." The figure of Skarga was posed for Matejka by Michal Szweycer, a former participant in the November Uprising and a Towiańczyk. From the introduction we learn that what the artist depicted in the painting is not an image of any of Skarga's famous eight Sejm sermons, which were delivered by the famous preacher during the Warsaw Sejm in 1577 at St. John's Church. The scene painted by Matejko has as its backdrop the architecture of the St. Stanislaus Chapel in Krakow Cathedral. Beautiful panels in heliogravure show the entire painting and five details: Skarga, Radziwill-Zebrzydowski-Stadnicki, Anna Jagiellonka and Halszka Ostrogska, Sigismund III, Jan Zamoyski.