Departments

This collection brings together a range of paintings and sculptures created between the 14th and 18th centuries as well as stone originals and gypsum casts of historical objects dating to the 12th-19th centuries, which have not survived in their original form.

While a substantial part of its resources is stored in the Main Building, Department II has a sub-department in the Sukiennice. Its curatorial scope comprises paintings by celebrated Polish artists from the late 18th century up to around 1900.

Prints, Drawings and Watercolours is one of the largest, oldest, and in terms of iconography one of the most important museum collections of its kind in Poland. It was set up on the basis of collections taken from departments established by the first museum statute of 1883 (Drawings and Watercolours, Prints and Reproductions, Architectural Sections and Plans, and Memorabilia of Adam Mickiewicz).

The decorative art artefacts collected by the National Museum since 1984 include both Polish and foreign objects (which are usually associated with Poland in some way). The size of the collection and its wealth of valuable museum pieces make it one of the most important large collections of decorative art in Poland.

Founded on the basis of the first donations at the end of the 19th century and run by experts such as Prof. Zbigniew Bocheński, Dr. Stanisław Kobielski and Dr. Irena Grabowska, the Militaria Department eventually grew to a total of around 11,000 items including various types of weaponry and other military artefacts.

Orientalia from Feliks Jasieński's collection were exhibited several times in the National Museum in Krakow before World War II, while the collector was still alive. In 1934 a permanent exhibition of his collections was opened in the Szołayski House, a branch of the National Museum dedicated to Feliks Jasieński, which presented a selection of the works he donated to the Museum.

Established in 1883 the Numismatics Room boasts of rich resources of coins, medals and banknotes, both Polish and foreign, as well as a superb assemblage of antique coins: Greek, Roman and Byzantine. The most valuable part of the holdings is the collection of around 11,000 objects amassed by Emeryk Hutten-Czapski, an expert in numismatics.

The nucleus of the collection of old prints was the Czapski family’s gift of over 8,000 items that had formed Emeryk Hutten-Czapski’s library. When the collections of the Chodkiewiczes, Helena Dąbczańska, Edward Goldstein, Feliks Jasieński, Wacław Lasocki, Adolf Sternschuss, Adam Wolański and others were added, the library grew to over 26,000 volumes and joined in whole the National Library Resources System.

This collection is made up in whole of objects presented and stored at the Jan Matejko House. The resources of the painter’s output, especially portraits of his family members, are growing through purchases and gifts. The most recent acquisitions (1999–2001) are portraits of Paulina Giebułtowska and Maria Golichowska nee Matejko. One of the most generous was a bequest from the heirs of Helena Unierzyska nee Matejko.

The holdings of the Zakopane Museum include sheet music, a book collection, letters and documents, access to which is possible for research purposes. The villa is also the seat of the Karol Szymanowski Music Society, the organiser of the “Atma Nights” cycle and annual festivals such as ‘the March Nights of Chamber Music’, and ‘the Music of Karol Szymanowski Days’ (since 1977).

This Department stores objects from three collections. The Princes Czartoryski Foundation is the owner of around 2,000 objects (including some 460 coins), mostly from the area of Egypt, Greece, Etruria and Rome, purchased in the second half of the 19th century by Prince Władysław Czartoryski at art auctions or directly from digs. The Egyptian objects include two sarcophagi with mummies; stone and wooden stelae; a set of scrolls with the text of The Book of The Dead; minor cult artefacts: figurines of divinities, scarabs, amulets, small ushabti (Shabti) figures; as well as objects of everyday use: mirrors, cosmetic palettes, jewellery and a small collection of shrouds and two mummy portraits.

The curatorial scope of this Department embraces Polish and European paintings, miniatures and sculptures from the Czartoryskis’ collection initiated by Princess Izabela at Puławy (early 19th century) and expanded by Władysław Czartoryski (second half of the 19th century), as well as paintings and sculptures from other countries, owned by the National Museum in Krakow and collected since its inception in 1879.

The collection of decorative arts is one of the most superb in Poland. A majority of the objects come from the Puławy collection: the Temple of Sybil and the Gothic House. It was the intention of the founder of the first Polish museum to present the history of Poland from time immemorial up to these days through an appropriate selection of historical objects, memorabilia and relics.

The Armoury of the Princes Czartoryski Museum is small albeit one of the most attractive in Poland as it holds an impressive collection of objects of high historical and artistic value, very many of them from the original Puławy collection at the Temple of Sybil (founded 1801) and the Gothic House (built 1809) The founder Izabela Czartoryska saw the Temple of Sybil as the pantheon of Polish war glory and managed to garner kings’ and hetmans’ arms and war trophies.

The Room has an impressive collection of prints, drawings, architectural plans, reproductions and printing plates. They are not on view permanently but more than sixty works supplement the gallery on the 1st floor of the Palace and the exhibition devoted to the Czartoryskis’ history and museum at the Monastery. There are over 46,000 prints and over 6,600 drawings that were an integral part of the historical collection that the family gathered from the second half of the 18th century onwards.

In total, the collection of old prints and cartography includes over 225,000 volumes representing the groups described below. There are 333 bibliographic items in the collection of incunabula, including 77 prints dating from the 15th-century - the Princes Czartoryski Library is the only one in Poland that can boast of such a collection. Its typographic and writing polonica are its most prized possessions: the Library holds three out of four oldest prints produced in Poland by the itinerant publisher from Bavaria Kasper Straube, who was active in Krakow.

Underlying the inception of the Czartoryski archives and collection of manuscripts were the need to document their own political activity; legal considerations relating to documentation used in court cases and to prove identity before tribunals; and their collecting passion. The department possesses 13,000 numbered catalogue items containing thousands of historical documents, loose-leaf and bound, relating to Poland, other European countries and the United States of America.

The Orthodox Art Department as an organisational unit and museum collection of that name was set up in 1966 by separating off a section of the Department of Polish Medieval and Modern Art, one of the Museum's original units. Its collection consists of sacral objects associated with the Orthodox Church, mostly from territories of the former south-eastern Polish Republic, but also from Russia and the Balkans.

This is the largest of Polish collections of extant historical textiles as it comprises over 20,000 artefacts. For preservation reasons the most valuable of them are only from time to time on public view at the Gallery of Decorative Art. This collection includes a rich selection of liturgical vestments and sacral paramenta, dating from the early 14th to 20th centuries. The embroidered medieval and Baroque chasubles are unmatched in terms of artistry.

This collection of over 80,000 Polish and foreign objects from the years 1850–1945 comprises two primary sections: photography and reproduction. A substantial part of this collection are prints, but there are also some plates, daguerreotypes, as well as single prints on metal, leather and oilcloth.

The Studio was established in 1964 as a research department intended to gather information and pr-1914 photographic documentation – in any technique – of views of Cracow, which survived in various collections, whether public or private. At present the inventory of the Studio lists upward of 9,000 city views, both general and of specific streets, squares, facilities and interiors.