Cardboard for the Polychromy in the St Mary's Church – Figure of an Angel Playing the Lute

This cartoon of an angel playing the lute is one of the many musical angel studies Matejko produced for the St. Mary's Basilica polychrome in Kraków. In the Christian iconographic tradition, music-making angels were associated with heavenly praise and the liturgy, making them appropriate figures for a church interior. Matejko's angels drew on specific medieval and Renaissance sources he had studied carefully, but were also animated by his characteristic ability to give historical figures the life of actual people. The lute-playing angel belongs to the program's emphasis on the sensory and contemplative dimensions of worship.

The angel's posture and the instrument are studied with care for the physical act of performance — fingers on strings, the slight forward lean of concentration. Drapery is handled in a stylized Gothic manner. The palette is warm, harmonizing with the church interior's golden and ochre tones.