The Baptism of Lithuania

The Baptism of Lithuania (in Polish, Chrzest Litwy) is an oil on canvas by Jan Matejko, completed in 1888, depicting the Christianisation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The scene is set before the temple of the pagan god Perkūnas, where the boyar princes and the local population are baptised on Holy Saturday, 1387. Matejko conceived it as part of his series The History of Civilisation in Poland, a group of compositions through which he reconstructed key episodes of the Polish past. The painting goes beyond a religious act: it gathers many figures of the Lithuanian and Polish nobility into one scene, arranged around the priest and the new rite, so that the viewer reads the change of faith as a collective and political event. Matejko was a leading exponent of history painting, a genre aiming to fix founding moments of a nation in images, and the work makes most sense within that purpose. Identifying each figure and judging the historical accuracy of the scene call for caution, since the composition largely serves the artist's narrative intent.

Painter

Jan Matejko

Date

1888

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

60 × 116 cm

Museum

National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw

Genre

history painting

Depicts

Vytautas, Kaributas, Vladimir Olgerdovich, Karigaila, Andrzej Jastrzębiec, Švitrigaila / Svidrigiello, Bodzanta, Vygantas

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