Goldsmithery

Jewels, silver and gold items, jewels, ivory and amber sculptures, jewelery miniatures, and numismatics.

One of the best collections of its type in Poland, systematically augmented with new acquisitions, gifts and deposits, it includes over one thousand items: gems, gold and silver items, semi-precious stones (mountain crystal, jadeite, nephrite, agate), amber and ivory sculptures, miniatures in jeweller’s settings and numismats minted in the 16th to the 18th c. commissioned by Polish monarchs. The collection resembles the old private collection in the royal treasury, dispersed in the 17th c, and the Crown Treasury at Wawel, finally destroyed following the Prussian looting in 1795. The collection boasts the most valuable medieval precious objects discovered during archaeological excavations at Wawel. There are single items commissioned by Polish monarchs (Casimir the Great, Sigismund I the Old, Sigismund II Augustus, Stefan Batory, Sigismund III, Ladislaus IV, John Casimir, John III Sobieski, August III of Saxony), or by people from their immediate circle at court in Kraków and Warsaw. Many vessels and furniture come from aristocratic treasuries: those of the Radziwiłł, Sapieha, Potocki and Ogiński families. It is one of the most important collections of old Polish silverware for secular use (bowls, cups, tankards, mugs, pitchers, boxes, cutlery and candlesticks), and other goldsmithery objects of high artistic value historically related to Poland, mainly from Gdańsk, Toruń and Królewiec. Items from important centres, such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, Leipzig, Hamburg and Wrocław are dominant among the examples of European goldsmithery.