Henryk Siemiradzki

Henryk Siemiradzki (1843 – 1902) was a distinguished Polish painter, best remembered for his monumental history and biblical paintings executed in the Academic style. Although he initially graduated with a degree in natural sciences, he abandoned a scientific career to dedicate himself entirely to painting, studying in Saint Petersburg and Munich before spending most of his active creative life at his studio in Rome. Siemiradzki achieved worldwide renown for his masterful depictions of sunlit pastoral scenes from the ancient Greco-Roman world, the lives of early Christians, and his monumental stage curtains for the opera houses in Lviv and Kraków. A recipient of the French National Order of the Legion of Honour, his masterpieces are now held in many of Europe's major national galleries, and his remains rest in the national Pantheon on Skałka in Kraków.