Coronation of Tsar Dušan

Subsequently, based on the sketches of Byzantine court dress, he ordered the chief costume designer of the Vienna Opera, the famous Blaschke, to make ruler's garments of brocade and silk for Emperor Dušan and Empress Jelena, as well as a chasuble for Protovestiarios Nikola Buća, who reads the proclamation in the foreground. However, the best reference for the reconstruction of the Serbian ruler's medieval costumes, Paja Jovanović found on the frescoes in the choirs of the Gračanica Monastery in Kosovo.

Fascinated and amazed by their beauty, he did not hide his enthusiasm that he found exactly what he was looking for, which he would later, in his later years, endorse in his memoirs: "Gračanica enchanted me at first glance ... frescoes in the choirs, as well as many portraits of influential people, who thus created permanent monuments for themselves ... Those paintings of Stratelates in the choirs are so astonishing, that I am convinced they represent the best frescoes in the world of that time ... ".

Serbian cavalry under the leadership of Duke Preljub (pictured in close-up on the right, on a horse with knight's equipment) wears Venetian armour. Paja Jovanović reconstructed the warrior's armour by ordering the making of identical armour in Viena after  seeing the armour sample on the warriors' sculptures on the famous memorial monument of the medieval ruling family Scaligeri from Verona.

Despots Oliver, Vukašin, Uglješa and Gojko, and members of the court camarilla, wear Byzantine court clothes. The Dubrovnik envoys in the group presented on the left wear Venetian city clothes, and the German Guard, under the leadership of Palman Teutonicus, wears military armour from the 14th century with full combat equipment. The authentic medieval coats of arms, painted on spears on the far right, were taken from a book on coats of arms called "Armaila Illyricorum" used by Jovanović in the Viennese court library.

This valuable manuscript book once belonged to the treasury of the Žitomislić monastery in Herzegovina, but the Austrians took it from the monastery during Herzegovina's occupation brought it to Vienna. Jovanović found in it over fifty shield-shaped medieval coats of arms of ruling families, where the coats of arms of the Kobilović (Obilić), Ohmučević, Dejanović and other families that were painted on the spears of the Serbian cavalry, are recognised as the most important ones on the painting. Drawings of those  coats of arms, symbols and costumes can be found today in the artist's legacy at the Museum of the City of Belgrade.

The painting "Coronation of Tsar Dušan" received many laudatory awards as well as a gold medal. On the other hand, the artist himself was a little dissatisfied with the painting technique. Thus, from the Paris exhibition until the late years of his life, he painted this theme of the coronation of Emperor Dušan on several occasions, in different formats, in several styles and for various needs. 

After the Second World War, the painting changed its name to "Proclamation of Dušan's Code", and this change was in a way justified and explained by the author himself in a newspaper article from 1955, where he said he envisioned the composition with Stojan Novaković as an act of coronation and as an act of proclamation of the code. The extent to which this masterpiece was appreciated and sought after is also reflected in the fact that more than ten of its larger and smaller replicas and variants are known so far.