The first image of Bolesław Chrobry does not appear in Romanesque art until the 12th century on a bronze door in Gniezno – but here at once three times. Only few examples of the depictions of the king can be traced in medieval panel painting. A separate subject is the depiction of Boleslaus the Brave on his medieval tombstone – as far as we are able to reconstruct this unpreserved tumulus. In the Early Modern times images of the king contain the Chronica Polonorum by Maciej of Miechów (Miechowita), published in 1519, and the Chronicle of Poland by Marcin and Joachim Bielski, portraits being followed by the sculptor of his bust on the gate of the Piast Castle in Brzeg, and possibly also on the Warsaw palace of Hetman Stanisław Chomętowski (later incorporated into the façade of the public library of the brothers Andrzej and Józef Załuski). Series of portraits of rulers, including Chrobry, has survived from the reign of the last pre-partition ruler of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski – above all these of the Marble Cabinet by Marcello Bacciarelli. 
Recalling the images of the king is not only the quantity undertaking, but they also form a reflection on the degree of his popularity in the Middle Ages and in modern times, as well as a narrative, to which amount these representations became constitutive (choice of pose, attribute) for the whole 19th-century Polish history painting, including Jan Matejko or Piotr Michałowski.