Exhibition archives

Watercolours allow for very little possibility of retouching of correcting the image created. Painting in this medium involves the application of thin, nearly transparent layers of paint to the paper, through which the substrate is visible. The technique requires precision and accuracy. Once painted, a given fragment can only be very slightly modified by the application of further layers or by the removal of some of the pigment. 

The exhibition consists of manuscripts, old prints and maps kept in the Czartoryski Princes Library. Among the presented materials relating to European monarchs, there were documents related to the dynasties ruling in Poland, as well as graphic representations of the rulers.

The exhibition “Centuries of rappresentazioni musicali in the collections of the Princes Czartoryski Library” is focused on opera, a genre of music which has from the outset combined several artistic forms including words, music, images, and dance.

The Graphic Arts Room of the Princes Czartoryski Museum presents a new set of etchings from its collections. These portraits and illustrations of various events and ceremonies are associated with the reign of the elected kings of Poland, the Wettin dynasty. The works presented were created by
outstanding artists of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, including Dutch, Italian, and Germain artists, including from the Augsburg school.

Near the borders of Poland in the province of Lesser Poland there stands a high and rocky crag of the Tatra mountains […] whence the river Vistula flows from its source and meanders through the centre of the Crown Kingdom of Poland northwards to the very city of Gdańsk, where its fresh waters into the salt water of the Baltic Sea flow and intermingle. Indeed, this one among all others in the Kingdom of Poland is known as the Head of All Rivers. These words about the Vistula and a woodcut showing a landscape with Barania Góra (Ram Mountain), where the sources of the Vistula are located, open an exhibition dedicated to this queen of Polish rivers and portrayals of it in historic books, maps, and plans. A characterisation of the Vistula and an engraving of it were included in a 1703 edition of Hieronim Morsztyn’s work “Antypasty Małżeńskie (Matrimonial Appetisers)”, a collection of three amorous tales first published in 1650.

The Cathedral Treasury at Wawel Castle is a Late Gothic, three-bay structure with a rib-vault ceiling, constructed in the late 15^th century, adjacent to the Cathedral on the northeast side. Since that time, it has been a place for storing precious historic objects of national significance such as sacred relics, priestly regalia, and other ceremonial items.