Glassware collection in the National Museum in Krakow currently consists of 3474 items. It is stored in the Department of Decorative Art and Material Culture - Glassware subdivision. Since 1998, the most valuable part of the collection has been presented to the public in the Gallery of Decorative Art, as a part of the permanent exhibition in the Main Building of the Museum, locaed on 3rd of 3 May Avenue in Krakow. The collection includes European glass items: tableware, decorative and unique glass, stained glass and mirrors from the Roman times to the 1990s.
A special place in the collection is held by a stained-glass window set from the Dominican Church of the Holy Trinity in Krakow, dating from the 13th – 15th century. The stained glass window is a deposit placed in the Museum by the Municipal Conservator of the City of Cracow. It is undoubtedly a unique piece of glass on the European scale.
Glassware collection of the National Museum in Krakow was mainly created thanks to donations of prominent Polish collectors. The largest donations were the ones of: Emerzk Hutten-Czapski, Stanisław Ursyn-Rusiecki, Maciej Wentzl, Kazimierz Iwanicki and Teodor Dunin. Among the most valuable items donated to the museum one can find the collection of Baroque table glassware from Polish manufacturing centres, such as the Crystal Glassworks in Lubaczów and glassworks in Naliboki and Urzecze.
The National Museum owns the largest in Poland collection of so-called 'service glassware' from Polish and Czech factories from the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th century. The collection is not only large in number, but also representative because of the variety of forms and decoration.
In 1950 the glassware collection was complemented by a valuable collection of the former Industrial Museum. Thanks to that the National Museum now possesses one of the best in Poland collection of Central European, mostly Czech, Biedermeier glassware and the unique collection of glassware from the second half of the 19th century, representative for the Historicism period. Thanks to the purchases of the Industrial Museum at the World Exhibitions in 1873 and 1875 the National Museum in Cracow currently owns a collection of glassware from the glassworks of Antonio Salviati in Murano, near Venice as well as glasswere gollection from Czech glassworks, ordered by the company Lobmeyr from Vienna.
Among the examples of 20th century glass in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow, one can find French Art Nouveau pieces of Emile Galle and brothers Daum manufactories from the beggining of 20th century. They are suplemented by a small collection of Czech decorative glass. An interesting part of the collection are Polish unique and functional glass items from the second half of 20th century. The collection was created by direct purchases from various artists or from glassworks realizing orders. Among the unique glass there are early works of Henryk A. Tomaszewski from the 1940s, works of Jerzy S. Orkusz from the 1970s and many other outstanding works of Polish designers.
Alicja Kilijańska