The first polish national museum was established by Isabella Czartoryska in 1801 in Puławy as a treasure-house for royal jewels, trophies of war, documents and relics of famous people and national heroes. That was the solution of Princess Isabella for rescuing remnants of Polish glory under the Partitions. During the November 1830 Uprising, the collection was taken by the son of Isabella, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski to Paris. Her grandson Władysław brought it back to Kraków and in 1876 erected a museum here. Nazi soldiers stole the most precious paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and Rafael whose "Portrait of unknown young man" we have never received back. Today you can admire here 3617 display units of ancient art, over 1500 display units of western Europe paintings, among them "The Lady with an Ermine" and "Landscape with compassionate Samaritan", ....

   The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and graphics from 1890 up to the modern days. This is the biggest gallery of this type in Poland, full of works of art of Olga Boznańska, Adalbert (Wojciech) Weiss, Joseph Pankiewicz, Jack (Jacek) Malczewski, Tadeusz Kantor... Creativeness of Stanislaus Wyspianski and Joseph Mehoffer is represented by their monumental stained glass drafts.  

The exhibition shows works of art of the most famous Polish artist: poet, drama writer, author of portraits, designer of church interiors in Krakow, stain glass maker, author of polychromes, colleague of Joseph Mehoffer and Jan Matejko.