One of the most important customs associated with the last Sunday of Lent is the blessing of palms. In Lithuania, for example, this rite has resulted in a centuries-old tradition of bringing palms made by the local housewives to church.

One of the oldest iconographic sources of the tradition of blessing palms is Canute Rusiecki's painting 'Lithuanian Woman with Palms' (1844). It shows, inside a Vilnius church, a young woman "from the people" dressed in the typical Vilnius costume (red kerchief, grey kaftan, blue skirt), holding a massive bundle of palms, which are also hung on her back. She appears to have come to the temple to sell the palms, as may be evidenced by the pouch by her side. The girl is standing by a pillar with a wavy design, while in the background is a Rococo altar with a painting of the Virgin Mary of the Dawn Gate.

Rusiecki's painting is one of the first genre paintings in Polish painting. Educated in Paris and Rome, the painter boldly broke away from idealism and depicted the ordinary and typical. He did this responsibly, as he was one of the first artists to travel through the Vilnius region with a sketchbook in hand. In the painting 'Lithuanian Woman with Palms', he captured the tradition characteristic of Vilnius. He condensed elements typical of the Vilnius people - the girl's costume, as well as architecture - the Rococo interior of the temple with the picture of Our Lady of the Dawn Gate.

The custom of palm waving was also of interest to the pioneer ethnographer Oskar Kolberg, who wrote in the mid-19th century about city palms made of paper flowers and village palms made of moss, bilberries, pitchfork, willow and other plants. Vilnius palms would later feature in paintings by Ferdynand Ruszczyc, among others, becoming a characteristic element of the Lithuanian landscape.