Poland 1953 – Nicolaus Copernicus
Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with
God is a famous painting by the
19th-century Polish artist Jan Matejko. An engraved version of
it is seen on the first of this pair of stamps commemorating
the 480th anniversary of Copernicus’s birth. In
Matejko’s painting, Copernicus sits between a diagram of
his heliocentric system and a simple observing instrument
called a triquetrum, invented by Ptolemy and also known as
Ptolemy’s rules. He is depicted apparently on the roof of
his residence (now known as Copernicus’ tower) in the
grounds of Frombork Cathedral where he was a canon at the time
he was writing his masterwork De
Revolutionibus. (A coloured version
of the same painting appears on a Russian stamp from 1955.) The second
stamp of the pair depicts Copernicus holding up a diagram of
his heliocentric system; the Earth with the Moon orbiting it
can clearly be seen as the third planet from the Sun. The two
stamps were by different engravers so there is an inconsistency
in style.
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