Constitution of 3 May 1791 is a large
Romantic oil painting by
Jan Matejko. It was painted in 1891 to commemorate the centenary of the Polish
Constitution of 1791, a milestone in the history of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the high point of the
Polish Enlightenment. Set in the late afternoon of 3 May 1791, the canvas shows a procession from
Warsaw's
Royal Castle, where the Constitution has just been adopted by the
Great Sejm, to
St. John's Collegiate Church. While the procession was a historical event, Matejko took many artistic liberties, such as including persons who were not in fact present or had died earlier, because he intended the painting to be a synthesis of the final years of the Commonwealth. Like many works by the same artist, the picture presents a grand scene populated with numerous historic figures, including King
Stanislaus Augustus;
Marshals of the Great Sejm,
Stanisław Małachowski and
Kazimierz Nestor Sapieha; and co-authors of the Constitution such as
Hugo Kołłątaj and
Ignacy Potocki. Altogether, some twenty individuals have been identified by modern historians. Originally displayed in
Lviv, the work now hangs at the Royal Castle of Warsaw. (Full article...)
... that the announcement of the reopening of the Embassy of Poland in Manila coincided with Poland's decision to expand its economic involvement in Asia?
... that Polish mountain climber Tomasz Mackiewicz went missing on January 27 during his seventh attempt to reach the summit of the 8,126-metre (26,660 ft) high
Nanga Parbat in Pakistan?