The Khanty-Mansiysk Museum of Fine arts has a work, Two Figures next to the Sphinx Statue, by Russian academism painter Henryk Siemiradzki. It is a preparatory study for his monumental 7-meter wide canvas Candlesticks of Christianity, or Nero’s Torches. Siemiradzki spent some five years from 1872 to 1877 to complete it while staying in Rome for the Imperial Academy of Art’s scholarship.

The story in the painting is about the burning of early Christians in 64 A.D. Emperor Nero accused them of the Great Fire of Rome that destroyed 11 out of 14 city precincts. Following the accusations, Rome witnessed a wave of massacres – Christians were humiliated, tortured and executed.

The depicted scene is the garden in front of the Nero’s Golden Palace. Romans are looking forward to a nocturnal pageant, with people gathering at the bottom of the stairs awaiting the spectacle: live torches. Thirteen Christians have been tied to poles, smeared with pitch and plastered with straw. Nero has already arrived carried in his gold palanquin. He gives a signal to set fire to the torches to light up the wild pagan feast and dispel the darkness of the pagan world. Siemiradzki contrasts the sinful world of Nero and the new Christian world emerging through agony.

In his study Siemiradzki depicted a man and a woman against the backdrop of a masonry wall posed next to a statue of the sphinx, a mythical creature from Grecian myths, with the winged body of a lion and a female head. The woman’s body is semi-clad in a pink cloth, her hair tied with a red ribbon. The man’s body is concealed behind the plinth, his head crowned with white flowers. The study has been used rather precisely in the painting. Siemiradzki had paid much attention to the accuracy of costumes and architectural details of ancient Rome. He studied historical chronicles, frequented the ancient parts of the city, the Forum, and studied the Coliseum and semi-ruined basilicas and temples.

Siemiradzki exhibited his Nero’s Torches in Rome, Munich, Vienna, at the 1878 World Fair in Paris and in St. Petersburg. The painter was recognized by numerous awards in Europe, and the Uffizi, as a special honour, asked Siemiradzki for his self-portrait. The success tainted his relationship with the Academy: under its rules, the scholarship artists were not supposed to take part in foreign exhibitions. Siemiradzki failed to sell the painting, and in 1879 he presented the work to Krakow where they were about to open the Polish National Art Museum.