Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk

A court jester in bright red sits slumped in a chair, and he is the only person in the room not celebrating. Behind him, through the doorway, guests dance at a ball hosted by Queen Bona Sforza at Wawel Castle. On the table beside him lies an opened letter carrying the news that Smolensk has fallen to Moscow. Jan Matejko painted this in 1862, when he was just 24, and he set the scene in 1514, giving the fool the burden of understanding what the nobles chattering behind him have not yet grasped. A dropped rose lies on the floor, left over from the party, and through the window a comet streaks across the night sky, the traditional sign of disaster ahead.

Stańczyk was a real person, jester to three Polish kings, remembered for jokes so sharp they doubled as political advice. Matejko gave him his own face, which turns the painting into a self portrait of sorts and makes the message hard to miss: the artist saw himself as the one telling uncomfortable truths to a country that preferred not to listen. He was working in Vienna at the time, a year before the failed January Uprising against Russian rule, so the timing was pointed. The painting belongs to the grand tradition of nineteenth century Romantic history painting, and it became so well known in Poland that "Stańczyk" turned into shorthand for a certain kind of clear eyed pessimist. Not bad for a man in a fool's cap.