Jan Matejko in the context of "Polish painter"

Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags, electronic device cases, and shoes. It is popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame.

Although historically made from hemp, modern canvas is usually made of cotton, linen, or sometimes polyvinyl chloride (PVC). It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as denim, in being plain weave rather than twill weave. Canvas comes in two basic types: plain and duck. The threads in duck canvas are more tightly woven. The term duck comes from the Dutch word for cloth, doek. In the United States, canvas is classified in two ways: by weight (ounces per square yard) and by a graded number system. The numbers run in reverse of the weight so a number 10 canvas is lighter than number 4.

Royal elections in Poland (Polish: wolna elekcja, lit. 'free election') were the elections of individual kings, rather than dynasties, to the Polish throne. Based on traditions dating to the very beginning of the Polish statehood, strengthened during the Piast and Jagiellon dynasties, they reached their final form in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth period between 1572 and 1791. The "free election" was abolished by the Constitution of 3 May 1791, which established a constitutional-parliamentary monarchy.

The Union of Lublin (Polish: Unia lubelska; Lithuanian: Liublino unija) was signed on 1 July 1569 in Lublin, Poland, and created a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest countries in Europe at the time. It replaced the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, as Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was largely abandoned. The Duchy of Livonia, tied to Lithuania in real union since the Union of Grodno (1566), became a Polish–Lithuanian condominium.

The Commonwealth was ruled by a single elected monarch who carried out the duties of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and governed with a common Senate and parliament (the Sejm). The Union is seen by some as an evolutionary stage in the Polish–Lithuanian alliance and personal union, necessitated also by Lithuania's dangerous position in wars with Russia.

The Battle of Grunwald is a painting by Jan Matejko depicting the Battle of Grunwald and the victory of the allied Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania over the Teutonic Order in 1410. The canvas dates to 1878 and is one of the most heroic representations of the history of Poland and Lithuania. It is displayed in the National Museum in Warsaw.

The painting's main focus is the death scene of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Ulrich von Jungingen; another central figure is the Lithuanian grand duke Vytautas the Great, dressed in red with a raised sword. The painting has been both hailed and criticized for its complexity. It is one of Matejko's most recognizable works, and has likely contributed to the popular image of the battle of Grunwald, and its enduring fame in Polish and Lithuanian consciousness.

Golden Liberty (Latin: Aurea Libertas; Polish: Złota Wolność [ˈzwɔ.ta ˈvɔl.nɔɕt͡ɕ], Lithuanian: Auksinė laisvė), sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka or Złota wolność szlachecka) was a political system in the Kingdom of Poland and, after the Union of Lublin (1569), in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under that system, all nobles (szlachta), regardless of rank, economic status or their ethnic background were considered to have equal legal status and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges. The nobility controlled the legislature (the Sejm—the parliament) and the Commonwealth's elected king.

The Constitution of 3 May 1791, titled the Government Act, was a written constitution for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that was adopted by the Great Sejm that met between 1788 and 1792. The Commonwealth was a dual monarchy comprising the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; the new constitution was intended to address political questions following a period of political agitation and gradual reform that began with the Convocation Sejm of 1764 and the election that year of the Commonwealth's last monarch, Stanisław August Poniatowski. It was the first codified, modern constitution (possessing checks and balances and a tripartite separation of powers) in Europe and the second in the world, after that of the United States.

The Constitution sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy, introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the government's protection, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. It banned pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which had put the Sejm at the mercy of any single deputy, who could veto and thus undo all the legislation adopted by that Sejm. The Commonwealth's neighbours reacted with hostility to the adoption of the Constitution. King Frederick William II of Prussia broke the Prussian alliance with the Commonwealth, joining with Imperial Russia under Catherine the Great and the anti-reform Targowica Confederation of Polish-Lithuanian magnates, to defeat the Commonwealth in the Polish–Russian War of 1792.

Union of Lublin (Polish: Unia lubelska) is an oil painting by the Polish artist Jan Matejko, finished in 1869, depicting the Union of Lublin. The work is owned by the National Museum in Warsaw and is displayed at the National Museum in Lublin.