The Puławy collection was partly destroyed after the
November 1830 Uprising and the confiscation of the Czartoryski properties. Most of the Museum holdings, however, were saved and moved to
Paris, where they reposed at the
Hôtel Lambert. In 1870 Prince
Władysław Czartoryski decided to move the collections to Kraków, where they arrived in 1876.
The Museum's main facility closed for restoration in 2010 and reopened in December 2019.[2] During this time, parts of the collection were displayed at other venues.[3]
Royal collections
Princess
Izabela Czartoryska founded the museum in
Puławy to preserve
Polish heritage in keeping with her motto, "The Past to the Future." The first objects in her "Temple of Memory" of 1796 were trophies commemorating the victory against the
Turks at the
Battle of Vienna in 1683.
The Museum collections feature historical artifacts from the recovered treasures of the
Wawel Cathedral, the Royal Castle and other objects donated by Polish noble families (szlachta). Izabela also bought the treasures of the
Duke of Brabant, including his books which were considered a particular highlight of the collection. Influenced by the Romantic artistic movement, she also acquired objects of sentimental significance that represented the glory and misery of human life. Among these were
Shakespeare's chair, fragments from the alleged graves of
Romeo and Juliet in
Verona, ashes of
El Cid and
Ximena from the
Cathedral of Burgos, and relics of
Abelard and
Heloise, and
Petrarch and his
Laura. The library's book collection was later enhanced with
Tadeusz Czacki's collection, which included archives of
Stanisław August Poniatowski, last king of Poland.[4]
Upon Prince Adam Jerzy's death, his younger son, Prince
Władysław, took over the museum. A born collector, he and his sister, Princess Izabela Działyńska, expanded the collection to include: the
Polonaise carpet,
Etruscan and
Greek vases,
Roman and
Egyptian antiquities, and other types of arms and armours, as well as
Limoges enamels. At the 1865
Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, Władysław created a Polish room to exhibit the famous carpet and other parts of his collection.
In 1871, after the
French defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War, Prince Władysław packed or hid all of the artifacts and fled. In 1874, the city of
Kraków offered him the arsenal in the Old Wall as a museum, which he called upon
Viollet-le-Duc to renovate, who in turn delegated the project to his son-in-law Maurice Ouradou. In 1878, one hundred years after Princess Izabela set up her museum in
Puławy, the new museum, as it is seen today, was opened. Prince Wladyslaw continued to add items to the collection for the next twenty years, until his death in 1894.
Władysław's son, Prince
Adam Ludwik, then carried on the work of his father. In 1897 he took over the
Sieniawa Ordynacja property from the Emperor
Franz-Joseph. At that point his capital assets were estimated at 4.5 million
Austrian Crowns, not including the Collections. In 1899, Adam Ludwik's aunt Izabela bequeathed the
Gołuchów Estate, with all the collections that she had bought with her beloved brother Władysław, to her two nephews, and Prince Adam Ludwik cared for both Museums.
Dresden and back
He then travelled to
Japan and acquired the vases and bronzes still displayed today at the Goluchow Castle. In 1914, he was called up to the Austrian Army and his wife Princess
Maria Ludwika Krasinska took over the Museum, taking most of the important artifacts (52 paintings, 12 carpets, 35 folders of prints and drawings, and works by
Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, and
Rembrandt) to
Dresden because of her connections with the Royal Saxon Family. These works garnered great interest, with the collection being open to the public two days a week.
In 1918, after the war,
Hans Posse, Director of the royal collections, was unwilling to return the collection. He was fearful of the unrest in
Poland. However, after two years of negotiation, all objects were recovered and transferred to the Family Museum in
Kraków in 1920. The signing of the 1921
Treaty of Riga provided for the return of all looted or confiscated objects during
tsarism due to the
Bolshevik revolution.
In 1931 a large number of important books, archives and objects that had been taken from
Puławy by Russians in 1831 - immediately after the
November Uprising - were also returned, though most of these were placed in various national depositories.
In 1937, after Prince Adam Ludwik's death, his son Prince
Augustyn, took over as head of the family. He married
Princess Dolores Victoria Maria de las Mercedes de Borbon y Orleans and spent most of his time in Poland. Then, in August 1939, Europe was thrown into turmoil with the events of
World War II, and the museum was forced to prepare for war. Sixteen cases packed with the most precious objects were transported and stored in
Sieniawa, while the rest of the collection was carried down to the cellars of the museum, where unfortunately the Germans found the cases and looted the tradable objects. Luckily, although the Leonardo and other pictures were roughly handled, they were not damaged.
Closure
On September 22, 1939, Prince Agustyn removed what remained of the treasures and took them to his cousin's property in
Pełkinie. However, soon afterward the
Gestapo found the cases and took them back to Kraków, though not to the museum. On January 25, 1940, the final selections of the 85 most important items from the Museum were sent to Dresden, where Dr. Posse,
Hitler's plenipotentiary, decided that all objects were to be part of the Führer's own collection at Linz. From that moment the museum, whose curator was to die in a
Nazi concentration camp, was closed to the public.
In 1945, Dr.
Hans Frank, German governor of Poland and personal friend of Hitler, brought the paintings from
Berlin for his own use at
Wawel Castle. But when the Germans evacuated Kraków in January 1945, he took the paintings with him to
Silesia and then to his own villa in
Neuhaus. The Americans arrested Dr. Frank on May 4, and the Polish representative at the Allies Commission for the Retrieval of Works of Art claimed the stolen paintings on behalf of the Czartoryski Museum. However, the Raphael and 843 other artifacts were missing from the collection.[5] The whereabouts of these works, remain unknown to this day.
Masterpieces plundered from the Czartoryski Museum
The Mother of God with the Child, 1470s, tempera on panel. Stolen by the Nazis.
Saint with a Book, 15th century. Stolen for
Adolf Hitler's planned Führer Museum in Linz.
Madonna with Child (triptych), 14th century. Stolen in WWII.
After World War II
After World War II, the Museum was reopened and operated by Poland's communist government. Amid the country's desperate economic situation, the Museum survived thanks largely to the work of Professor
Marek Rostworoski, who dedicated his life to the collections. In 1991 the
High Court of the Nation[clarification needed] returned the Museum to its rightful owner, Prince
Adam Karol Czartoryski, along with the library housed nearby; from 1961 the library had been located in a building at ulica świętego Marka (St. Mark's Street). In 1971 the Czartoryski Library was recognized as
National Library[clarification needed].
The Library's collections include many extremely important European historical documents: a total of 224,576, including 70,009 books published before 1800, 13,552 manuscripts, and 333
incunabula. The Library comprises a "Prints and Cartography Division" and a "Manuscripts and Archives Division". The President of the Institution[clarification needed] is
Jolanta Lenkiewicz. The Library's books may be consulted only on the premises.
In 2010 the Museum closed for repairs and modernization.[7] Parts of the collection were temporarily displayed in other venues. 350 selected items were shown in the Arsenal building, while the Lady with an Ermine was displayed in the
Kraków National Museum.[3]
In 2016 the collections and Museum building were donated by Prince
Adam Karol Czartoryski to the Polish Nation on his behalf and that of his direct ancestors of the Czartoryski Main Branch
State Treasury.[clarification needed] The Princes Czartoryski Foundation received from the Polish Nation (the Ministry of Culture) $105 million, constituting less than 5% of the 3 billion euros estimated market value of the collections. The agreement also transferred to the Polish State the rights to any future claims to works of art that had been plundered from the collections.[8][9]
The donation of the Czartoryski Museum to the Polish Nation has been challenged by Prince
Adam Karol's daughter
Tamara, leading in 2018 to intrafamilial litigation between Adam Karol and his daughter.[12][13][14][15]