Czartoryski Museum

The Czartoryski Museum and Library (Polish: Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich w Krakowie [muˈzɛum ˈkɕɔ̃ʐɔnt tʂartɔˈrɨskʲix f kraˈkɔvjɛ]) is a museum located in Kraków, Poland, founded in Puławy in 1796 by Princess Izabela Czartoryska. The Puławy collections were partly destroyed after the November uprising of 1830–1831 and the subsequent confiscation of the Czartoryskis' property by the Russians. Most of the museum holdings, however, were saved and moved to Paris, where they reposed at the Hôtel Lambert. In 1870 Prince Władysław Czartoryski decided to move the collections to Kraków, where they arrived in 1876. The city had been granted a degree of autonomy following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.

The best-known work on display at the museum is the Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, the artist's only painting that remains in a private collection, and the Italian genius' only work held in a Polish museum; it is one of the best-known works by da Vinci. Other highlights of the collection are two works by Rembrandt, several antiquities, including sculptures, Renaissance tapestries as well as decorative arts, and paintings by Hans Holbein, Jacob Jordaens, Luca Giordano, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Dieric Bouts, Joos van Cleve, Lorenzo Lotto, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Lorenzo Monaco, Andrea Mantegna, Alessandro Magnasco and the Master of the Female Half-Lengths.