National Museum

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  • Address
    Al Jerozolimskie 3, city centre
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  • Phone
    621 10 31
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Lonely Planet review

Containing almost 800,000 items in its permanent galleries, the National Museum is the largest museum in the country. It's housed in a massive building, which is wheelchair accessible, at the western end of Al Jerozolimskie.

It's impossible to see the entire collection in one day, so it's best to choose your galleries wisely. With exhibits ranging from archaeology to 20th-century Polish art, choosing can be a hard task.

No-one should miss the Faras Collection however. This display of early Christian art originates from a town on the banks of the Nile in what is now Sudan, and was rescued by Polish archaeologists from the rising waters of the Aswan High Dam. Frescoes and architectural fragments, dating from the 8th to 12th centuries, combine ancient Egyptian symbolism (winged sun discs and lotus flowers, for example) with Christian iconography, and include beautiful, expressive and often colourful images.

The gallery of medieval art features a superb collection of religious painting and sculpture from all over Poland, with many gruesome renditions of the Crucifixion and scenes of grisly martyrdom. Most impressive is the huge Wrocław triptych depicting the Martyrdom of St Barbara (1447). The carved reliefs showing scenes from the saint's life and death are beautifully made despite their disturbing subject.

More Polish art, this time from the 16th to mid-20th centuries, is housed on the upper floors. Of the many, many paintings look for works by Jan Matejko, such as his epic The Battle of Grunwald (1878). The two main figures are the white-clad Ulric, grand master of the Teutonic Knights, to the left; and Witold, grand duke of Lithuania, dressed in red and sword raised in victory, perched atop a wild-eyed steed on the right. In the same room is Matejko's famous painting of Stańczyk (1862), the 16th-century court jester of King Sigismund the Old; here he represents the nation's conscience, meditating sadly on a major military defeat while the king and queen dance in the background.