First painting (1934) as advised by Sister Faustina. In 2017 the image underwent renovation and restoration to its original form. The first painting was made by
Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, under the supervision of Kowalska and her confessor, Sopoćko, in
Vilnius. Sopocko was a professor of theology at the
University of Vilnius and introduced Kowalska to Kazimirowski, who was a professor of art there and had painted other religious images. Kowalska gave Kazimirowski specific instructions about the appearance and the posture of the image, which she said she had received from Jesus Christ in a vision. Sopocko himself posed as Jesus for the image as wearing an
alb, and both he and Kowalska regularly visited the painter's workshop. The final painting satisfied neither Sopocko nor Kowalska, who later wrote that Jesus told her it was not that important for the picture to be beautiful since true beauty would be the blessing that he would bestow upon people by means of the painting. After its completion in 1934, the Kazimirowski painting first hung in the
Bernardine Sisters' convent near the
church of St. Michael, where Sopoćko was a rector. In her diary, Kowalska wrote that Jesus told her to inform her confessor that the proper place for the painting was in a church, not in the hallway of a convent. The first public exposition of the Kazimirowski painting was on 26–28 April 1935, at the Church of the
Gate of Dawn in Vilnius. The image, including small reproductions of it on various devotional materials, was used by Sopoćko in promoting devotion to the Divine Mercy. In 1948, the Soviet authorities, who then occupied Lithuania, closed St. Michael's Church. The painting remained in the disused church building until 1951, when two pious women from Vilnius, Bronė Miniotaitė and Janina Rodzevič, bought the canvas from a guard and concealed it in an attic for several years. Later, they gave it to the parish priest at the
Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit for safekeeping, but he chose not to display it in the church. Sopocko, who had relocated to Poland but was unable to take the painting with him, expressed concern about it to his friend Józef Grasewicz, who obtained the painting and moved it to his own parish church in
Nova Ruda,
Belarus. There, it was displayed and venerated by the local parishioners. In 1970, the Soviets closed that church and used it as a storage warehouse but left the painting hanging in the disused church, where parishioners continued to venerate it in secret. In 1986, Grasewicz arranged for the painting to be replaced by a copy and the original to be secretly transported back to the Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius, where it underwent a restoration that significantly changed its appearance, and it was then displayed and venerated in the church. In 2003, the painting, which had deteriorated because of exposure, attempts at cleaning, and the previous restoration, was professionally restored to its original look. In 2005, it was moved to its current location, above the main altar in the
Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Vilnius.
Other versions Before Hyła offered his votive painting, the sisters had commissioned
Stanisław Batowski to paint a third version. It was lost in a fire, and Batowski painted a fourth painting, which arrived at the convent at almost the same time as Hyła's.
Cardinal Sapieha, who happened to be in the convent then, selected the Hyła painting because it was a votive image. A number of other artists have painted the image, but Hyła's rendition remains the most reproduced one. Another popular image was created in 1982 by American artist Robert Skemp, an illustrator of pop fiction paintings and posters during the baby boomer era. Based on both the original and Hyła's works, the Skemp version depicts Jesus with a bright halo on his head standing on a doorway. Commissioned by the Marian Fathers in the 1970's, the Skemp version, along with Hyła's, are popular in the Philippines. The
Divine Mercy Shrine, Misamis Oriental, in
El Salvador,
Philippines, was built in 2008, and has a 15.24 m (50 ft) statue of the Divine Mercy towering above the shrine. ==See also==