Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich w Krakowie, Kraków

The Czartoryski Museum is a museum complex named for the Czartoryski family, with a collection whose travels are as dramatic as many of its artworks. Notice the masonry, window surrounds, and the way this historic complex meets the street. Princess Izabela Czartoryska began gathering the original collection at Puławy in seventeen ninety-six, creating a refuge for Polish heritage during a period of political collapse.

After the November Uprising, confiscations and destruction scattered part of the holdings, but much of it reached Paris and was kept at the Hôtel Lambert. Prince Władysław Czartoryski brought the collection to Kraków in eighteen seventy-six, where it became accessible to the public. The museum occupies the Czartoryski Palace, the Klasztorek, and the former Municipal Arsenal.

Its celebrated treasure is Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, alongside paintings by Rembrandt and works ranging from antiquities to tapestries, armour, and decorative art. During the German occupation, the museum’s greatest works were seized; Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man never returned. The museum now forms part of Kraków’s National Museum.