Sukiennice Museum

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Sukiennice Museum, a.k.a. Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art at Sukiennice, is a division of the National Museum, Kraków, Poland. The Gallery is housed on the upper floor of the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) in the center of the Main Market Square in Old Town Kraków.

Pochodnie Nerona (Nero's Torches) by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1876

Szał uniesień (Ecstasy) by Władysław Podkowiński, 1894

Czwórka (Four-in-Hand) by Józef Chełmoński, 1881

[edit] History of the collection

The Gallery holds the largest permanent exhibit of 19th-century Polish painting and sculpture, in four grand rooms. The majority of today’s collection at Sukiennice comprises gifts from collectors, artists and their families.

Initially the Sukiennice Museum shared the Cloth Hall's upper floor with the Fine Arts Society. The first major acquisition of the National Museum in Kraków was "Nero’s Torches" (Pochodnie Nerona), a painting presented to the city by its painter Henryk Siemiradzki.

The Gallery was closed to visitors from October 2006 till 2009 for major renovations, the bulk of the gallery's collections being moved to Niepołomice Castle for temporary display.

[edit] Arrangement

The gallery's arrangement resembles that of an 19th-century salon. The Enlightenment Room features 18th-century portraits and historical paintings by Polish and foreign classicists and pre-Romantics — Marcello Bacciarelli, Józef Grassi, Per Krafft, Józef Pitschmann, Aleksander Orłowski, Franciszek Smuglewicz, Michał Stachowicz and Kazimierz Wojniakowski.

The Piotr Michałowski Room includes his own paintings of "The Cardinal", "Seńko", portraits on horseback as well as battle scenes with the famed "Somosierra". The Room of The Prussian Homage features 19th-century Polish historical panoramas by Jan Matejko, paintings by Artur Grottger, Henryk Rodakowski, Henryk Siemiradzki, Jacek Malczewski and others.

The Chełmoński Room is devoted to landscape painting of the 19th century: Jan Nepomucen Głowacki, Wojciech Gerson, Józef Chełmoński, Adam Chmielowski, Józef Brandt, Maksymilian and Aleksander Gierymski, Józef Pankiewicz and Leon Wyczółkowski, including Władysław Podkowiński’s controversial "Ecstasy" (1894, pictured).

Sculptures include Pius Weloński’s "Gladiator", Walery Gadomski’s "Salome", Piotr Wójtowicz’s "Perseus With the Head of Medusa", Teodor Rygier’s "Bacchante", Antoni Pleszowski’s "Sadness", Piotr Michałowski’s "Napoleon on Horseback" and Stanisław Lewandowski’s "A Slav Breaking Chains". Among the collection of portrait sculptures are, Piotr Michałowski’s self-portraits, Antoni Kurzawa’s "Mickiewicz Awaking the Genius of Poetry", Antoni Madeyski’s "Portrait of Aleksander Gierymski", Wiktor Brodzki’s "Instigations of Love", Piotr Wójtowicz’s "After a Bath" and Antoni Madeyski’s "Greyhound".