Kraków is considered by many to be the cultural capital of Poland. It was named the European Capital of Culture by the European Union for the year 2000. The city has some of the best museums in the country and several famous theaters. It became the residence of two Polish Nobel laureates in literature: Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz, while a third Nobel laureate, the Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrić also lived and studied in Krakow. It is also home to one of the world's oldest universities, the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, and Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest Polish fine art academy, established in 1818 and granted full autonomy in 1873.
The Princes Czartoryski Museum – often abbreviated to Czartoryski Museum – is a historic museum in Kraków, Poland, and one of the country's oldest museums. The initial collection was formed in 1796 in Puławy by Princess Izabela Czartoryska. The Museum officially opened in 1878.
Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski is a Polish and Spanish aristocrat who is head of the Polish House of Czartoryski. He is related to both the Spanish royal family and to France's House of Orléans. In 2016, he sold the family art collection held in the Czartoryski Museum to the Polish state for approximately €100 million.
Leon Jan Wyczółkowski was one of the leading painters of the Young Poland movement, as well as the principal representative of Polish Realism in art of the Interbellum. From 1895 to 1911 he served as professor of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Kraków, and from 1934, ASP in Warsaw. He was a founding member of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka".
Jacek Malczewski was a Polish symbolist painter who is one of the most revered painters of Poland, associated with the patriotic Young Poland movement following a century of Partitions. He is regarded as the father of Polish Symbolism. His creative output combined the predominant style of his times with historical motifs of Polish martyrdom, the romantic ideals of independence, Christian and Greek mythology, folk tales, as well as his love of the natural world. He was the father of painter Rafał Malczewski.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. It is estimated Rembrandt produced a total of about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings, and two thousand drawings.
Piotr Michałowski was a Polish painter of the Romantic period, especially known for his many portraits, and oil studies of horses. Broadly educated, he was also a social activist, legal advocate, city administrator and President of the Kraków Agricultural Society. The Sukiennice Museum, a division of the National Museum in Kraków, contains a room that is named after him and devoted to Michałowski's work.
Henryk Hektor Siemiradzki was a Polish painter. He spent most of his active creative life in Rome. Best remembered for his monumental academic art. He was particularly known for his depictions of scenes from the ancient Greek-Roman world and the New Testament, owned by many national galleries of Europe.
The National Museum in Kraków, popularly abbreviated as MNK, is the largest museum in Poland, and the main branch of Poland's National Museum, which has several independent branches with permanent collections around the country. Established in 1879, the museum consists of 21 departments which are divided by art period: 11 galleries, 2 libraries, and 12 conservation workshops. It holds some 780,000 art objects, spanning from classical archeology to modern art, with special focus on Polish painting.
Hercules Pieterszoon Seghers or Segers was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Dutch Golden Age. He has been called "the most inspired, experimental and original landscapist" of his period and an even more innovative printmaker.
Henryk Gotlib was a Polish painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and writer, who settled in England during World War II and made a significant contribution to modern British art. He was profoundly influenced by Rembrandt, and the European Expressionist painters. Gotlib was a leading member of the Polish avant-garde 'Formist' movement in the interwar Poland.
Jacob Symonsz. Pynas was a Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman. He is best known for having briefly taught the painter Rembrandt in 1625.
Portrait of a Young Man is a painting by Raphael. It is often thought to be a self-portrait. During the Second World War the painting was stolen by the Germans from Poland. Many historians regard it as the most important painting missing since World War II.
The Polish Rider is a seventeenth-century painting, usually dated to the 1650s, of a young man traveling on horseback through a murky landscape, now in The Frick Collection in New York. When the painting was sold by Zdzisław Tarnowski to Henry Frick in 1910, there was consensus that the work was by the Dutch painter Rembrandt. This attribution has since been contested, though those who contest it remain in the minority.
Dagobert Frey was an Austrian art historian, a criminal responsible for the theft of the most valuable European and Polish collections from the Warsaw and Kraków museums and national art galleries during the Nazi German occupation of Poland.
The dozens of self-portraits by Rembrandt were an important part of his oeuvre. Rembrandt created approaching one hundred self-portraits including over forty paintings, thirty-one etchings and about seven drawings; some remain uncertain as to the identity of either the subject or the artist, or the definition of a portrait.
A Polish Nobleman is a 1637 painting by Rembrandt depicting a man in a costume of Polish szlachta (nobility). The identity of the subject of the painting is unclear, and has given rise to several different interpretations. The view that the figure's dress is clearly Polish is not universally held and it may have been a self-portrait.
The Ray of Light, also known as Le Coup de Soleil, is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Louvre Museum.
The Girl in a Picture Frame is a 1641 oil on panel painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt. It is also known as The Jewish Bride and The Girl in a Hat. With The Scholar at the Lectern and Landscape with the Good Samaritan, it is one of three Rembrandt paintings in Polish collections. It is currently located at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
The Scholar at the Lectern or The Father of the Jewish Bride is a 1641 oil on panel painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt. With The Girl in a Picture Frame and Landscape with the Good Samaritan, it is one of only three Rembrandt paintings in Polish collections. It is currently located at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
