Antoni Brodowski - Portrait of Ludwik Osiński in Freemason's dress - MP 557 MNW - National Museum in Warsaw

Antoni Brodowski (1784–1832) was already an esteemed professor in the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Warsaw when he produced his large-scale painting Oedipus and Antigone as a submission to a painting contest announced in 1823 in Warsaw by the Ministry of Religion and Public Education. The painting addressed a subject defined in the first category of the contest, which, in line with the erstwhile hierarchy of painting genres, covered compositions that were considered “lofty and academic.”