Museum of the Lubomirski Princes

Who are we?

The National Ossolinski Institute Foundation, or Ossolineum, is one of the most important and oldest cultural institutions in Poland. It was founded in 1817 (with the permission of Emperor Francis I) by the bibliophile and collector Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński (1748-1826). He chose Lviv as the location for the Ossolineum. In 1823 he signed another agreement with the collector and art patron Prince Henryk Lubomirski (1777-1850). The Lubomirski Museum was thus established in the Ossolineum, and Ossoliński not only enriched the Foundation's collections, but also provided it with funds from the estates of wealthier aristocrats. The Ossolineum has now been in existence for over 200 years and has been involved in library, museum, publishing, scientific and cultural activities.

The current departments of the Ossolineum are as follows.

The Museum of the Lubomirski Princes is the second part of the National Ossolinski Institute in terms of its establishment. The Museum was formally established on Christmas Day 1823, when the founder of the Ossolineum, Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński, signed an agreement with the art collector Prince Henryk Lubomirski. A department of the Ossolineum was thus created - as the agreement states: "This section and the objects it contains will bear the name Musaeum Lubomirscianum forever", i.e. the Lubomirski Museum. Its collections were based on two art collections: Ossoliński's and Lubomirski's. Thanks to the generosity of the public, the collections began to grow rapidly. However, the contractual condition for the opening of the museum was the establishment of the Entail of Przeworsk, i.e. the establishment of an indivisible part of the Lubomirski estate. Part of the income from the Entail was to be used to maintain the Ossolineum. It was Henryk's son, Jerzy Lubomirski, who achieved this in 1868, and in 1870 the Lubomirski Museum was opened to the public in Lwów (Lviv).

Our history in a nutshell

The Lviv Museum is divided into two basic units:

  • Historical-memorial exposition presented in various rooms of the museum and
  • The picture gallery with the most artistically valuable paintings.

An armoury, based on the collection of the Lubomirski family transported from Przeworsk, was placed in a separate room. This system of display was maintained, with minor changes, until 1939. The pre-war collections consisted of: paintings, Polish and foreign drawings, Polish and foreign graphics, photography, sculpture, archaeological and historical-memorial exhibits, Polish and foreign coins, antique coins, medals, seals and a collection of phaleristic objects.

Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War, many people donated their own collections to the Museum in order to save them from destruction or looting. In addition to paintings, miniatures, graphics and drawings, the objects donated for safekeeping included antique weapons, fans, snuff boxes and other handicrafts. In early 1940, however, the Soviet occupation authorities liquidated the Lubomirski Museum and distributed its collections to other institutions in Lwów (Lviv). The German occupation of Lwów (Lviv) in 1941 is associated with the confiscation of 26 drawings by Albrecht Dürer (from the original Lubomirski collection).

After the war, Lwów (Lviv) found itself within the borders of the Soviet Union. In 1946, the Ossolineum was moved to Wroclaw, where about 30% of the pre-war Ossolineum collections - but mainly the library collections - were transferred.

For more information about the pre-war Ossolineum collections and the current cooperation with the institutions in Lwów (Lviv), see the homepage of the National Ossolinski Institute.

The Lubomirski Museum was not restored immediately after the war, partly because only a few paintings from the former collection made it to Wroclaw, and partly because of the political situation. From the Museum's collection, it was mainly the graphic and numismatic collections that made it to Wroclaw. Thus, after the war, the Graphic Art Cabinet became part of the Ossolineum in 1949, and the Sigillographic and Numismatic Cabinet in 1955. In the following years, both cabinets significantly enriched their collections through donations and deposits, thus laying the foundations for the Museum's rebirth in free Poland. In 1995 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed a law restoring the Ossolineum's status as a foundation, and in 2007 this law was amended, obliging the National Ossolinski Institute to run the Museum of the Lubomirski Princes.

You can read more about the history on the website of the National Ossolinski Institute. There is a timeline, a calendar and biographies of the directors of the Ossolineum.

Gallery - Lubomirski Museum before the war