English Section

Matejko’s Copernicus on display at London’s National Gallery

23.05.2021 14:13
Visitors to the National Gallery in London have been offered a rare opportunity to see 'Astronomer Copernicus,' an iconic painting by superstar Polish artist Jan Matejko, since Friday.
A poster promoting exhibition Conversations with God. Jan Matejkos Copernicus at the National Gallery in London.
A poster promoting exhibition "Conversations with God. Jan Matejko’s Copernicus" at the National Gallery in London.Photo: The Polish Foreign Ministry

A special one-room exhibition, "Conversations with God. Jan Matejko’s Copernicus," opened in the famous British art museum on May 21.

The painting, entitled “Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God,” depicts Nicolaus Copernicus observing the heavens from a balcony, near or at the cathedral in Frombork, surrounded by  astronomical tools.

The work dates from 1872 and was painted in the run-up to celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Copernicus’s birth.

It part of a collection of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, southern Poland, adorning its Senate Chamber.

The painting will be on display at the National Gallery in London until August 22, 2021, alongside a 1543 copy of the Polish astronomer’s ground-breaking treatise “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).

(ał)

Source: gov.pl